The Harold Greene Track at the University of North Carolina Wilmington is surrounded by trees on two sides, Boseman Field on a third and Hamilton Drive and more trees on the fourth.

With few lights and fewer people in the area, the university recently decided to close the track daily at dusk.

“It’s a safety issue. When daylight savings time arrives, we’ll extend the hours,” UNCW Athletic Director Jimmy Bass said. “We want to worry about the safety of faculty, students, staff and our varsity teams that use it. When the general public uses it, we want to ensure their safety. We didn’t think we could do that after dark with the poor lighting.”

Several area groups have approached the university about changing the policy, but Bass said until major renovations are done to the facility, he doesn’t see that happening.

“We have a long-range vision of what we want to do with facilities, and honestly, we need to improve that track significantly,” he said. “We were holding out last year and thought we might be able to get one-time funds from the university and it dropped off (the budget) at the very end.

“We were asking for $800,000. It’s on our radar scope, but it’s like so many other projects here. We’re hoping someone can help.”

Date posted: February 15, 2012

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