• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

As veteran runners express growing concern over the administration’s interference with a purely student-run event, university police continue to finalize plans to ensure the safety of a modified Undie Run route.

The new route will begin at the corner of Gayley and Landfair avenues, turn left at the traffic light, cut through De Neve Plaza, go down Bruin Walk, and end in Bruin Plaza.

University police has ensured that the route onto campus will be safe, but plans to close off motor traffic have not been finalized.

“There has been deep discussion with our department and the administration to get a route agreed to by all parties,” UCPD Sgt. Jim Vandenberg said. “I know there are some meetings that are going to happen on Monday and Tuesday.”

The route change will be the first departure from the original path, which went down Landfair Avenue to the corner of Glenrock and Levering avenues, since the Undie Run began four years ago.

The tradition, which takes place at midnight every Wednesday of finals week, involves a crowd of students dressed in their underwear who run down a predetermined path. Many students have opposed the new route.

“So much of Westwood is not a college town anymore,” said Justin Loeb, a fourth-year English student. “Nothing takes (Westwood) back more assertively than students running around in their underwear.”

Undergraduate Students Association Council Facilities Commissioner Joe Vardner said that certain aspects of the Undie Run, including loud noise and public intoxication, could get students in trouble with city police. Moving it on campus protects students because the “LAPD can’t get involved,” Vardner said.

Still, an LAPD patrol car assigned to Westwood will be monitoring the run, said LAPD Sgt. Glenn McNeil.

“In the past it hasn’t been bad,” McNeil said. “We won’t have a big presence.”

With over 1,000 students expected to participate, “things can get out of hand very quickly,” Vardner said.

“We have some powerful neighbors in Westwood who are tired of noise, and the administration doesn’t want anybody to get hurt. We need to make it safer, otherwise the LAPD will be involved next quarter and the event will be cancelled.”

Faced with this possibility, “I guess I’d (rather) run in my underwear on campus than nowhere,” Loeb said.