Lexington city officials address ongoing road condition concerns
Jan 14, 2025
While the main roads in Lexington are clear after last weeks disruptive winter storm that brought snow and ice to the region, many of the citys side streets remain slick.Fayette County Public Schools opted to keep kids at home Tuesday for a seventh day, and a trial run by bus drivers to check out the roads on Tuesday ended with at least one bus getting stuck on ice.At a Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council work session Tuesday afternoon, Mayor Linda Gorton acknowledged that the situation has been difficult for people.Nancy Albright, the citys commissioner of environmental quality and public works, said at the work session that crews were out working on roads after hearing concerns from councilmembers offices and from the school district.Albright said that the school district sent a list of known bus routes last spring and that the city felt they had those roads in relatively good shape with maybe some potential gaps.Weve gotten additional roads from Fayette County Schools yesterday and again this morning so we are continuing to work with them on addressing those concerns as we receive them, Albright said.Gorton noted that the nature of the storm piling inches of snow, ice, and more snow had presented added difficulties.The plows dont do much on ice, Albright said. We have treated almost 200 miles of unranked roads so far since Thursday of last week.Albright also said that crews had to temporarily take crews off of snow and ice removal to take care of the more than 200 fallen tree reports made to the city.That takes a crew of two to three people to go remove each tree in a safe manner so we had to suspend snow and ice operations for a few of our drivers to go clear the roads of the downed trees, Albright said.Those crews are now back on snow and ice removal, Albright said.We are going to try and get some folks to work late and work again tomorrow to continue to clear these roads, Albright said. We realize its still cold, and a lot of the packed snow and ice has become a skating rink and we are continuing to work through those roads to the best of our staffs ability as we can.LEX 18 went to North Lexington to check out the condition of the roads Tuesday afternoon and found slick conditions on side roads.I understand why there's no school because usually the bus comes down here and lets them out, said Richard Walker, who lives on one of the untreated roads.