The city of Lexington makes plans to improve bus routes during severe weather

Lexington, Ky (WTVQ): Fayette County Public Schools had several NTI days due to severe weather last week. Now the city is looking to help the school district make sure students can head back to class sooner.

Nancy Albright a lifelong Fayette County resident. Now she works as a commissioner and is in charge of Public Works. She says they’re using last week’s severe weather as a way to improve communication “It’s every few years we’ll go through this combination of precipitation followed by really cold temperatures where our normal practice starts to break down,” she said. “How we can help each other out with making sure we know where our trucks need to go to be the most help to them.”

Albright says the products that the city stockpiles, like salt, may not be as effective when the temperature drops below zero degrees. “Our crews responded very well and I am very proud of the work we did,” she said. “To do more than that would have been a level of magnitude different, that would have been an extreme expense. Purchasing the material, even with our existing crews. There’s a lead time of several weeks to months that has to be in place that would work well for that once in every five-year storm.”

Albright says that FCPS and the city is struggling to figure out how they can be more affective in clearing bus routes. She says for next winter they’re working to restructure their snow plow routes to improve the situation. “We are making sure that all of the school access roads are treated so that the buses can get there,” she said.

Albright says they still may not be able to get every route clear within 48 hours. “There’s several hundred bus routes,” she said. “So, getting them all would potentially be a really heavy lift.”

Their goal is to get everyone within a few blocks of a street. “Unless, it’s really heavy accumulation we will likely not get all of the neighborhood streets,” Albright said.