When will Lexington snow plows make it to my street? Here’s how city’s snow plan works
After most parts of Lexington received nearly 10 inches of snow Thursday, city crews have cleared many of Fayette County’s most-traveled corridors and are working on secondary roads, city officials said early Friday.
Rob Allen, the city’s director of streets and roads, said at a Thursday press conference the city has enough staff to plow streets. The city has tapped employees from other city departments including Water Quality, Waste Management and Parks and Recreation who have a commercial drivers license. The city has struggled in past years to attract enough people with commercial drivers licenses for various city jobs due to a nationwide shortage of CDL drivers.
Both of the city’s salt barns were also full prior to Thursday’s snow storm, he said.
Lexington plows 1,174 miles of streets based on a ranking system that has been developed and tweaked over many years.
Streets with the most traffic or those with key emergency services—such as hospitals and schools— are plowed first. Those roads are rank 1 streets.
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Examples of rank 1 streets:
- Richmond Road
- Nicholasville Road
- Main Street
- Versailles Road
- Man O’ War Boulevard
After those major roadways are cleared, city crews than move to rank 2 streets. Those streets are generally major connector streets.
Examples of rank 2 streets:
- Red MIle Road
- Loudon Avenue
According to a press release from the city of Lexington early Friday morning, crews had already moved on to those rank 2 streets by Friday morning.
After rank 2 streets are plowed, the city then starts plowing major connector roads into neighborhoods, called rank 3 streets.
Examples of rank 3 streets
- Zandale Drive
- Appian Way
- Buck Lane.
The last streets to be plowed are local neighborhood streets. Those are streets that have the least amount of traffic. Most neighborhood streets are rank 4 streets.
Crews sometimes plow streets multiple times, depending on the snow event and how much snow the city gets.
“Crews start with rank 1 streets, which includes emergency routes, and then proceed through all of the ranked streets. Once these streets have been plowed one time, the crews return, by rank, to the streets that need to be re-plowed,” the city’s snow plan states. “While crews are plowing streets in the urbanized area of Fayette County, other city crews are also plowing county roads.”
The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet also has more than 800 miles of state and federal roads it maintains within Fayette County. It also clears snow on many major roadways including New Circle Road. The state hires private contractors to plow those streets. State crews generally maintain major interstates such as Interstates 75 and 64.
To see a copy of the city’s snow plan go here.
What about sidewalks?
Lexington also clears city-owned sidewalks based on a similar ranking system. Those sidewalks with a lot of foot traffic and those in proximity to major services such as Lextran bus stops, hospitals and schools get priority.
Many sidewalks in the downtown core are cleared first. The city often can’t start clearing those sidewalks until after crews have finished plowing roadways. Sidewalks can get covered again with snow during street plowing.
“Sidewalk snow clearance must be coordinated with roadway plowing, as re-covering by plowed snow can occur where sidewalks are directly adjacent to the roadway. Viaducts, monolithic curb/sidewalk segments, and ADA ramps at intersections are particularly susceptible to this problem,” the city’s snow plan says.
A variety of different city departments, depending on where the sidewalk is, are responsible for clearing city-controlled sidewalks.
Homeowners and private businesses have 24 hours to clear sidewalks
A city ordinance, tweaked in 2016, says after a major snow storm of more than 4 inches, private home owners and businesses have 24 hours after the snow fall stops to clear sidewalks if the street has already been plowed.
The ordinance was changed in response to two major snow storms in 2015 that dumped more than 14 inches of snow in Lexington. After those storms, many people walked on busy, downtown streets due to too few sidewalks being cleared.
This story was originally published January 7, 2022 at 11:19 AM.
