Stouffville track opens to public after month-long construction

Yorkregion.com
August 7, 2018
Simon Martin

On your mark, get set, go! The Stouffville track is back in action.

Crews tore down the fence that was barring public access to the oval this weekend. The track had been closed to the public for a little over a month.

The new track was installed  by Playteck Enterprizes and is a rubberized track service. The project tender was $257,798.

The new track comes after the previous construction of a “new” track was bungled in 2014.

Paint had been peeling off the track ever since it was refurbished in 2014. York Region Runners Club member and volunteer coach Fred Robbins called it basement floor paint on asphalt.

The coloured paint cost more than $700,000, with half the cost being covered by a federal grant and the other half covered by the town.

“The guys had no idea what they were doing when they built the track,” Robbins said last year.

Former Oak Ridges-Markham MP and current Markham-Stouffville MP Paul Calandra signed the federal grant that was used for the track back in 2014. Last year he said he regretted the decision after seeing the results.

“It was supposed to be a rubberized track, not a painted track,” he said. “It was not what we paid for when the federal government made that grant. It was not what we were promised.”