itsbean and its pool politics

Arrived at the YMCA tonight after work to find a "full" pool that's 3 people per lane but each lane is actually two lanes. Waited for a few minutes for people to leave and they did and then joined a lane. Heaven forbid that I should jump in before someone left and we would actually have to swim in a circle. What I should have done is asked the lifeguard to put in another laneline for some reason this beautiful 8 lane pool is perpetually divided into 4 lanes for lap swim. I asked the lap swimmer next to me, " gosh wouldn't it be nice if we had a two lanes here instead of one?" He told me this is the way of the pool-double wide lanes since he started swimming there 20 years ago (talk about entrenched). He went on to explain that the single lanes made by adding more lanelines were smaller than a standard single lane. So swmmr grrl I am hoping you will know...what is the standard size in inches please of a single laneline? The single lane revolution awaits your response!!! FIGHT THE POWERS THAT BE!!