With the newly-renovated track at Paul Derr Track opened as of Monday, lanes five, six, seven and eight of the running surface can now be used from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday by PE classes, students and faculty.
From 2 p.m. to 8 p.m., the track will again be limited to Athletics practices. From 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. and on Saturdays and Sundays the track will be closed except for N.C. State athletic events.
Senior Associate Athletics Director David Horning said it’s not uncommon for schools to limit the hours students can use Athletics facilities such as tracks.
“As far as the Athletic facilities, we’re just trying to regulate them,” Horning said. “I think every college in the country does the same thing.”Horning stressed that liability for the Athletics Department is a big reason the track is closed on the weekend.
But Ashley Murr, a junior in biological sciences, said she is disappointed the track is closed to students Saturday and Sunday.
“I was actually going to run there this weekend,” Murr said.
Horning said off-campus groups would have to go through the Facilities department to get permission to use the track any day of the week and student groups would have to go through such a process to use the track on weekends.
He also noted the money put into improving the soccer field contained inside the track and how Athletics wants to protect its investment.
“There’s a lot of money that was spent on the soccer field to upgrade that, to put a sand-based Bermuda field down there. So we want to keep it nice, and so if you don’t have it secured on the weekends, groups can get on there and toss Frisbee and whatever,” Horning said. “And that’s counterproductive to why we wanted to put that there.”
Steven Gerardi, a sophomore in business management, said he can understand why the hours for students to use the track are limited.”We re-did it so that the track team could have a new track,” Gerardi said. “The main use should be for the track team.”
Horning added that the lack of open hours on the weekend is nothing new, just that the track will now be locked Saturday and Sunday. He said the track was technically closed on weekends before the renovations.
“There wasn’t really any way to enforce it or parameters,” he said.But even though Gerardi said he can see where the Athletics Department is coming from, he still thinks more could be done to let students use the track at some time other than class time on weekdays.
“There needs to be some way students can use it at normal hours,” Gerardi said.
Murr said the treadmills in the new gym addition are nice, but she still disagrees with the time limits on student use of the track.
“You buy equipment so it can be used,” Murr said. “You put in a track so people can use it.”
