New snow/ice plan

DATELINE: Oct 13, 2026
Lexington, Kentucky

A plan to completely overhaul the way Lexington handles winter weather – the biggest overhaul in 30 years – will be presented to the public and the members of an Urban County Council committee today.

“At the Mayor’s direction, we have been working on this plan for about seven months, challenging everything about our snow plan, talking to everyone who plays a role in winter weather response from salt truck drivers to first responders, to our schools, to residents, to Councilmembers, to our communications team, and crafting a snow and ice plan that recognizes the challenges of our changing weather,” said Charles Martin, Interim Commissioner of Environmental Quality and Public Works. “Now, we are ready to test this plan and to look for ways we can continue to improve it.”

The 44-page plan covers all aspects of the city’s winter weather response including treatment options, communications, equipment, supplies, partners outside government, and street rankings. Depending upon the severity of the storm, the plan envisions the involvement of hundreds of city employees and outlines their duties.

Major changes include:

• Pretreatment now includes all ranked streets being salted within first 4 hours of a storm.
• Additional drivers added to response team.
• Ongoing work with Fayette County Public Schools to develop a Plan A/Plan B transportation schedule to reduce the number of school closure days.
• Combining Rank 3 & 4 streets into a single category to increase driver treatment efficiency.
• Increase in staffing for treating “hot spots”, contract operations management and public safety concern response.
• Reallocation of staffing to have more “eyes on the routes,” inspecting for quality control and improved productivity.
• Agreements with 8 disaster response contractors so City has quick access to supplemental services as needed.
• Enhanced technology to increase efficiency in treatment routes and inform the public.
• Major roads (i.e. Man O’War, Alumni, Polo Club, Clays Mill) treated by contractor, allowing city crews to focus on lower-ranked roads. Expand the contractor role to maximize the annual investment for contract operations.
• More robust incident command structure in accordance with the recommendations contained in the After Action Review.
• Creation of a new public weather dashboard including data about response to winter weather.

“This plan is a living document – it’s built with change in mind,” Martin said. “We expect it to change as we test it, and into the future as weather continues to change. It’s important to expect the unexpected where future weather events are concerned. The last two years have been well outside historical norms. This plan must account for the need to adapt.

Oct. 22, 2026

Mayor, Superintendent discuss alternate winter bus stop plan

Lexington and Fayette County Public Schools are working together to design a safety-first alternative plan for bus stops during periods of extreme winter weather.

Interim Superintendent Bill Bradford established a leadership plan for the 2026-27 school year that prioritized this project as an essential consideration for possible implementation if weather conditions prohibit regularly established pick-up and drop-off locations for students.

With Lexington’s changing weather, Gorton has been asking the schools to consider Plan B routes for several years. “It was one of the first questions I asked Interim Superintendent Bill Bradford, and he immediately agreed to explore the idea,” Gorton said. “Both the city and the schools are working together to combine some neighborhood bus stops, allowing us to get our children back to school faster when we have extreme weather.”

Bradford wants students in the classroom when it is safe to do so. "There is no substitute for in-person learning. Our goal in partnering with the city is to ensure that following severe winter weather, our students and staff can safely return to the classroom as quickly and safely as possible,” Bradford said.

A planning group, involving representatives from both the government and the schools, has been meeting regularly to identify Plan B routes. 

“These are changes that would occur at stops within neighborhoods, not along major thoroughfares,” Gorton said.

The routes would only be used in extreme weather.

The goal is to resume in-person instruction even when road conditions are not fully optimal in all neighborhoods. In identifying Plan B routes, student safety is the top priority for both the government and the schools. “While we rely on the city to optimize and clear our primary and secondary roads, having a structured backup plan ensures that as soon as conditions allow us to transport students safely, we will, ” Bradford said.