Want to know when your street will be plowed? Here’s Lexington’s snow removal plan

Lexington plows 1,174 miles of streets based on a ranking system that has been developed and tweaked over many years and many snow storms.

Winter Storm Blair, which swept into the region Sunday, had dropped at least 5 inches of snow on the city as of 3:30 p.m. that day, the National Weather Service reported. Mayor Linda Gorton declared the city under a state of emergency Sunday afternoon, activating additional city resources.

In addition to city snow crews, the city also hires private contractors to help with major roads, including Man O’ War and Alumni.

Rob Allen, director of the city’s streets and roads department, said Friday the city has plenty of salt and staff to plow city streets. Officials rank streets for plowing based on traffic and proximity to public services.

Which roads does Lexington plow?

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. Some examples include:

• Richmond Road
• Nicholasville Road
• Main Street
• Versailles Road
• Man O’ War Boulevard

After those major roads are cleared, city crews than move to rank 2 streets. Those streets are generally major connector streets. Examples of those are:

• Red Mile Road
• Loudon Avenue

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 include:

• 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.

As snow falls, the city’s priority is to keep rank 1 streets open. That means crews often have to plow Main Street and Nicholasville Road multiple times during a typical snow event.

Allen said the city has to wait until the snow stops falling to get to all streets. Ice can also complicate snow removal efforts.

“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. State crews generally maintain major interstates such as interstates 75 and 64.

The city’s full snow plan is available online.

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 roads. Sidewalks can get covered again with snow during street plowing

A variety of different city departments, depending on where the sidewalk is, are responsible for clearing city-controlled sidewalks.

A city ordinance also says private sidewalks in front of homes and businesses must be cleared within 24 hours after snow stops falling, after the road has been plowed and if the snow amount total is more than 4 inches.

The sidewalk 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.

Allen, the director of streets and roads, encouraged people Friday not to walk in the center of major streets. It’s dangerous and makes clearing of snow difficult, he said.

This story was originally published January 6, 2025 at 5:00 AM.

Beth Musgrave

Lexington Herald-Leader

Beth Musgrave has covered government and politics for the Herald-Leader for more than a decade. A graduate of Northwestern University, she has worked as a reporter in Kentucky, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois and Washington D.C. Support my work with a digital subscription