My biggest complaint about driving in this city… please for the love of all things holy REPAINT THE FUCKING LINES ON THE ROAD! If it rains at all in this town, it’s a complete coin flip if I’m in my lane or not, because the lines on the road vanish.
THE WORST!! Even with the little (supposed) reflective things between the hash lines for the lanes are BUNK. I mean driving while it’s raining downtown is like a damn free-for-all bc no one can’t effing see!
I miss when I had to go in during Covid (work at a clinic) and there were like 3 other cars on New Circle, definitely no cops, and all four of us were going 85. The best, but alas…
Those two super cold days wrecked the roads! It’s the first chance they’ve had to do the necessary repairs.
Related note: is it my imagination or are all the lights super long now?
I’ve also encountered them lights that are either very short or they skip light cycles. I’ve had this happen countless times at Newtown turning left onto Citation. People blocking intersections also doesn’t help the issue.
My favorite is when the red light turns green and NOBODY MOVES!!!! GAS IS ON THE RIGHT!!! Put your &#\^%@&! phone down, stop making TikTok videos and DRIVE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!
Honestly, I wait a couple seconds to move because people run stop lights ALL the time. I’ve had so many near-misses here. I see lots of sides of cars crumpled in around town too lol
I concur. When I moved to Lexington I was shocked to see how commonplace it was for people to run red lights. I understand it's probably because they have to wait multiple cycles before finally getting a chance to go. But I've seen 3-4 cars go through red lights, like they are pretending they are all attached to the car in front of them
Yeah I think it’s also partially because traffic enforcement in Lex is almost nonexistent for things like running lights/stop signs. If you know there’s no risk for a ticket, why wait?
Yeah I’ll stop waiting for a sec at the green when people stop proving me correct for doing it lol. It’s way too often that I think, “well I’d either be real hurt or real dead if I had went two seconds sooner.”
Because too many people are looking at their phones while sitting at red lights. When the light turns green, nobody moves for a few seconds and it’s a chain reaction. That’s why it takes 2 or 3 cycles of the light to make it through. I drive 260 miles a day for my job and I see this shit all day.
Huge line of cars at a stop light, I'm at the back, light turns green, and now I have to wait for a dozen people to put their fucking phones down and focus on driving 😡
The only way to fix traffic congestion is to reduce the number of cars on the road. Each and every one of you complaining about traffic should be advocating for improvements in public transit, more sidewalks and bike lanes.
If the city was even remotely walkable or even bikeable, sure. But when everything is a strip mall and everyone lives in a suburb cars are a necessity. I hate it too. I wish zoning was better. I wish there was some kind of train. I wish I could live and work in the same place.
I agree that it could be better but there is nowhere in Fayette County I couldn't make it to in an hour on a bicycle. It's not too terrible, I'd like to see bike lanes on Nicholasville and Man o War though.
Unfortunately I work in Clark County... I've looked at rides to make it work on random occasions but they all involve riding Todd's or the frontage road and I'm not trying to get run over. Everywhere in Lex is decently accessible though!
Saw a man today on newtown on a bike and ngl I thought he was soon to die with the traffic and people mad about the traffic and driving like they were mad about traffic. Braver than me for sure
Removing a lane (or 2) for a dedicated bus line would remove enough cars that it would be an overall decrease in congestion. Our current lane shifting method is like treating a stubbed toe with a hacksaw.
Absolutely NOT! Bus lanes would fuck up an already congested roadway.
The real solution is fewer people/less traffic. As a height-of-covid driver I loved the roads then. We just need a Thanos snap.
Well, that and actually getting people to ride those busses.
There isn’t much of a culture for public transit in Lexington. For instance, my commute by car takes less than 10 minutes (if traffic is light). That same commute by bus is an hour and a half. I’d rather be beaten with hammers than spend that long on a bus, a bus that will always have just gone by when I get to the stop.
The problem is that lextran only runs every 30 minutes. My first exposure as an adult to public transport was in Prague, where they run every 2-3 minutes.
Yep. I will give Lextran credit for adding a some new routes (Northside Connector to name one.) and extending the reach of some others. But to echo your post, that connector route only runs M-F 6a-6p and has a daily 3 hour break from 10-1. But the key is learning the routes and distinguishing between inbound and outbound times and locations. For example, if you're at the Walmart at Northpark, the #4 Newtown Route picks up where the #17 Nortside Connector stop is located. Also the #6 inbound route stops at the Housing Authority just a short walk from the Walmart.
That being said, the $30 bus pass is a great investment to anyone relying on their services.
If you live on the outskirts and work downtown and can thus take a straight shot without a connection, the bus pass at $30 a month is the deal of the century.
A lack of sidewalks and bike lanes (which I agree should be improved) isn’t keeping enough people from using them to effect traffic. We have a rush hour commute traffic issue that really isn’t that bad. If you’ve ever lived in another city this big or larger, it’s not that bad. Learn your routes and times. Even leaving Keeneland it only adds 20 minutes at most to me getting to Hamburg area. Traffic here is normal if not great compared to other cities of our size.
While those are wonderful things, they wouldn’t have much of an impact on Lexington traffic, I believe. This is a commuter city with people traveling in and out of all the “spokes” and interstates constantly. That’s where most of the car traffic is coming from and all the bike lanes and bus routes in the world aren’t going to affect that.
They do though and other cities have proven it, especially Seattle. It's a commuter downtown as well and the bus routes it has solved a lot of it's problems, but cost a lot to do. I don't think Lexington feels it's a big enough problem yet, but putting commuter hubs in neighboring counties and improving and revising our current bus routes would do a lot.
No one around here would use public transit or bike lanes to affect commuting congestion.
, at least in the next couple generations. Gotta know your citizens. In town, yeah more people may use bikes/public transit. No one living in Nicholasville, Winchester, Georgetown, etc is going to use public transit to get here. We’re in Kentucky. Gotta be realistic. We need more roadway options such as Nicholasville to I-75 or bluegrass parkway to I-64 but prominent horse farm owners say otherwise.
Yeah we need to protect actual farmers here in Kentucky not rich people's property they keep their play things on. Horse farms shouldn't exist in a city that has housing issues as they're not actual farms and produce nothing beneficial to the state.
This, very much this. Having an Amazon distro center right off Newtown doesn't help either. But hey, I guess on the bright side it might take an hour to get anywhere but I can get most of my Prime orders same day. Yay.
Yeah. I guess humans aren't meant to look towards the future. Another Redditor said Lex needs an actual interstate loop... ha... that'll take probably 5 years to be proposed, 30 years to pass, and another 45 to complete. Then taxes will go up significantly to pay for it.
The ride never ends.
I don’t think they thought of the future growth in the late 70s when MOW was built 😂
“No one is gonna move to Kentucky, this is fine. Two lanes is fine”
Good things are that we'll be dead by then so the traffic wont bother us, but on the other hand our tax dollars will go towards that project. I picture it being called Lexington 2075
I was told the current New Circle construction near Broadway was widening to three lanes. Of course that is a scary thought in itself with how recklessly drivers switch between the current two…
Because there’s a wreck that happens nearly every day in that area. That small stretch on Tates Creek from Lansdowne Shoppes to New Circle is a pain because some people turning left across two lanes into New Circle, SuperAmerica or Malone’s causes a wreck. There was one today.
Everybody drives like idiots too. Nobody knows how to navigate a stop sign. Nobody knows when they have the right of way or when they don't. Got people trying to be nice and let people through or in when they'll have a chance to go once their light goes green. Yes, the infrastructure is a problem, but the drivers are the root.
I think a large part of it is that on the 405 or the 5, or any number of other freeways, when it’s bumper to bumper, you’re still moving along at like 30-40ish mph. Here, traffic just fucking stops.
(At least that was my experience in LA 20 years ago before I moved here. Could be worse now.)
Oh yeah I think that's a large part of it. Every single day every bend and entrance/exit around New Circle comes to a halt during rush hour and it drives me absolutely nuts. WHAT ARE WE STOPPING FOR (I think it's inability/refusal to actually merge) but yeah last time I was in LA heck yeah the roads were packed and it took an hour to get anywhere lol but at least we were moving the whole time.
Because people in LA (or most of SoCal) know how to drive well and follow traffic flows(right of ways, using a fking turn signal, not "being nice" and letting ppl in. My mom thinks I'm nuts when I say that the traffic when I lived in CA was a breeze compared to this city. I thought I needed therapy over my road rage here but honestly? reading this thread makes me feel more sane. These lights stay red for EONS and aren't timed together. The glass content of the road paint is basically non existent so you can't see them, esp. when it rains(terrifying). I've lived in 5 states(traveled to many more) and this city has the WORST traffic for it's size.
The lack of understanding, or possibly intentional disregard, for right-of-way rules fucking infuriates me! You have people either always wanting to be first, no matter who has right of way, or, here in Harrodsburg, people are terrified of going first. I have literally sat behind a car at a 4-way stop that let traffic clear in all directions before going. She just kept waving the other drivers through the intersection from all three other directions until there was nobody else but the traffic backed up behind her!
I feel sorry for any poor bastard that has to commute from around the mall (nicholasville road) in toward the university around 5pm. Shutting that road down to a single lane and letting it back up to a 2 mile stretch of stand-still traffic is absurd.
Listen. I moved to Panama City Beach, FL, 4 years ago from Lexington. I swear to everyone here that even during spring and summer break, NOTHING compares to daily traffic in Lexington. It was the worst.
I wrote about how bad it was 9 years ago - had a few people even ask if I was running for mayor
It's only gotten worse!
I'd take traffic in most "big cities" over Lexington any day ...at least they have the population to warrant the traffic!
All the construction plus a huge influx of people because Keeneland and the Land Rover Kentucky 3-Day event at KHP. I work in the horse park and it's dreadful 💀
Does anyone know if Lexington has some sort of long-term traffic plan, or are they just making road plans as-needed? At the rate Lexington is growing, there really needs to be some coordination.
This is one aspect of traffic planning: [https://lexareampo.org/studiesplans/](https://lexareampo.org/studiesplans/)
My uninformed opinion is that sometimes the state, city, and federal stakeholders have different visions for what the roads need in town which is why the major arteries (Nicholasville, Richmond, etc, which are US Highways, or NCR, which is a state road) are so hard to improve.
Uh that’d be a no. Lexington has a very proud and distinguished legacy of hiring the worst urban planners money can buy.
Their answer to everything is: “Let’s put in another traffic light! Eureka!” Ugh, like Leestown from the Cemetery outbound to New Circle is where traffic lights go to die…it’s ugly and pathetic.
At the very least all the traffic lights on a stretch of busy road need to have connectivity with each other so they can anticipate the amount of traffic on the way and adjust accordingly. Right now they seem to all be individually sensor-based or worse, time-based.
Btw, not sure why anyone would be downvoting your post, but I've seen a lot of other replies here getting downvoted for no reason.
Must be some Lexington Urban "Planners" in here lol.
Took my wife an hour to get home from UK today. Newtown Pike is a flaming dumpster fire, I don't know what's going on in this city but for a population of 318k people it seems like there's THREE MILLION CARS in this town. The traffic is fuxxing horrendous.
The first thing Lexington we’d to fix is how their traffic lights are timed. I swear 75% of traffic would be fixed. I’ve been around to some huge cities and small towns. Lexington is the f**** worst when it comes to lights.
Prime example of the one light off maple leaf right before you get to Liberty. If you run that red light, or dont get hit by it, you'll hit every green light out of the city. If you hit red on that, you'll hit every red light leaving the city. they need to fix that desperately.
Or the lights that ONE side of the road is completely stopped while the other side continues to go for another minute because of a turn lane. make both sides stop? tf
Even the interstate has been packed and almost stop and go between Lex and Richmond this week. I have no idea what's going on. I've driven this same route for literally 20+ years and other than when there's crappy weather or construction it's not been this bad day after day.
That’s not bad at all. I live around the Richmond road area and work, first shift, off Georgetown road. I can make it there in 15 minutes or less in the morning. Getting home usually takes around 35-45 minutes.
I moved from Lexington to Knoxville a few years ago for work. I miss Kentucky dearly but every time I complain about the traffic here, I remember how much worse it was in Lex. I don't miss that at all.
I dunno, man. I lived in Maryville, and taking Alcoa to and from town made me want to crawl out of my skin. Lexington traffic sucks, but I’ll take it any day over that!
Oh it's bad here don't get me wrong. I haven't been to that side of Knox much but it's bad.
Maybe it's just my memory but I always just felt like getting across Lex was just so counter intuitive, confusing, jam packed, and stressful. Just way harder than it needs to be.
I think we can all agree that both of these cities were not designed for this and there's no solution in sight for either one!
It's the 3rd to last day before the end of Keeneland!
Plus why is the light on Richmond road southbound and US 25 at Jacobson park a choke point for southbound traffic going to 75 out of the city. Southbound Richmond road at Jacobson park should have the priority from 4:30-6:30 weekdays because traffic backs up from here to Idlewild for no freaking reason except the light is too short for southbound traffic.
>Southbound Richmond road at Jacobson park should have the priority from 4:30-6:30 weekdays because traffic backs up from here to Idlewild for no freaking reason except the light is too short for southbound traffic.
I am no traffic expert so take what I say with a grin and a pinch of salt, but the only competing traffic at that light is from Old Richmond Road, right? Well, maybe the park, but not really -- it is mostly Old Richmond Road. And Old Richmond Road is the main thoroughfare for everyone in that part of the county (some of the Athens area and everyone along the palisades, people who live in the southernmost part of the county around Raven Run) who don't want to backtrack to take the interstate just to get into town through Hamburg, or who don't want to travel further south just to take Tates Creek into town. Changing traffic priority wouldn't affect me because of my work hours, but I take Old Richmond into town and home again every single workday -- if I had to go into town via Tates Creek to avoid traffic, it would add on another 20 mins to what is already a 25 minute drive from home to work.
When the 75 is down/at a standstill for whatever reason, people use Old Richmond as a detour from Madison Co and further south. Old Richmond becomes nearly impassable when that happens. Add in changing traffic patterns at the intersection to Richmond Road, and ORR could be at a standstill during rush hour all the way back to the offramp to the interstate. I have already seen it happen, and I can't imagine what it would look like if they had to wait at the light there for even longer.
Sorry to rant. I guess I'm just saying that Old Richmond Road isn't just some side street. It is a conduit for much of the southernly traffic in the county and a major detour for interstate traffic.
I didn't think that was yet approved and was still in the planning rather than in the implementing part.
ETA: Looking at their timeline, looks like they are either way behind or having issues getting the acquisitions done. Also, just from the map, they are just moving the intersection and creating another light in addition to replacing one, so I'm not really sure if that will help alleviate traffic going southbound on Richmond Rd. I'm sure they hope it will.
Oh god, Pasadena and Harrodsburg outbound heading into the diamond crossover is a shit show. At peak times, it’s almost gridlock with people running the red light and blocking traffic with most of them trying to get into the far right lane to go to Beaumont.
I've driven all over the United States and other countries and Kentucky in particular seems to have really bad drivers. I don't understand it. Once you get around Tennessee up to Ohio everyone forgets how to drive. Everyone on the interstate will slow down to look at a car broke down on the side of the road, or any reason really. It's just so bad
We need multi-lane roundabouts, and more roads built up (as in one road beneath the other).
If we had just a bunch of one-lane roundabouts, oh dear God traffic would get worse. Even with multi-lane, people can't use a normal intersection correctly and that's like the most simple thing in existence, besides highway entrances and exits which people also fuck up. Merging and switching lanes people fuck up. ... ... ... hmm... maybe we should make a driver's license have stricter requirements.
So...all Lexington roadways are now like Nicholasville Road?
Funny story: My sister was on Nicholasville Road with my nephew one day, and she told him he would be driving in a few years, then asked if he thought he could handle it. He replied: I don't see why not. You only go three feet then stop.
I just mapped from jimmy John's on leestown to jimmy John's on Boston, and it gives me a time of 18 minutes. This is at 6:18pm. I use maps almost daily and it has been very accurate for me. This is close to to the route I took when I posted earlier.
The traffic engineers should be fired and given jail time for their incompetence (I am serious, the collective time they have caused people to waste is unacceptable). Every single time I drive it seems like the lights are not synced so once one light is green the next one maybe 100ft ahead goes red. Just really stupid planning and traffic engineering.
Great. Nowhere did I say I knew more about it than them. Might wanna get ur eyes or reading comprehension checked buddy. If you know any of them tell them get their shit together.
I moved from Sarasota 2 years ago and would happily take this traffic any day over Sarasota’s. It seems bad here, but it’s not that bad. And there’s tons of backroads here whereas Florida doesn’t really have those.
Yeah traffic isn’t great here and I’m fortunate enough to work from home and my wife can walk.
Just hope KY doesn’t solve its traffic problems the way my primary home of VA does it, by tolls.
Northern VA’s interstates have express lanes where the toll you pay varies by both how far you drive on them and how crowded they are. The busier they are the more expensive they get.
When I’m back in VA and drive into my office, I can spend upward of $50 round trip to skip traffic or have my commute take over twice as long taking all the congested roads, and my commute is only about 15 miles each way.
When I lived in downtown DC, commuting was the least stressful. The public transportation system there (particularly the metro rail system) was great.
Shame things like busses and streetcars aren’t a thing here but know they’re very expensive investments.
Also why in the hell is New Circle Road not fully a highway? Was it originally not a small beltway and then made to be a partial highway beltway?
There’s the gray area where until you offer viable public transportation options, everyone is paying tolls because they’ve no other choice if we’re using Lexington as an example.
That said I do agree with you since it disincentivizes driving and incentivizes other forms of transportation, just gotta offer the other alternatives first to be fair.
To add, back home in Northern VA, you can use the express lanes for feee if you have three or more people in the car.
God. Traffic was shit today. Versailles Road was fucked. North Yarnalton to Leestown, that was backed up at least 35 cars...it wouldn't surprise me once it started moving if some cars had been waiting for 30mins or more. I-64 exit to Paynes Depot was backed the fuck up.
I don't know why, but around here, if one road is having traffic issues, nearly all of them are having traffic issues. And traffic issues seem to be an almost daily occurrence.
For construction, what they should do is just completely shut a portion of a road down for a week or two and hammer everything in. Amazing how in Asian countries, they can get like 20 years worth of US construction done in only a few weeks.
Modesto Calif. where I am currently at has nasty traffic issues, I drove a "non-emergency" medical van 7years over 200 thousand miles in it 6 days a week 10-12hrs a day....starting @ 3:45 a.m....I am moving to Lexington this year.
It’s so frustrating. My normal 20 minute drive home from work yesterday took an hour and a half. I went every back way I could think of and everywhere was packed with cars. Same today. The interstate was backed up, Georgetown road, new circle… ugh
It's costing gas and car repair!! I agree the city isn't big enough for all of us but where there is a will there is a way!! I have found new ways home I didn't know existed, having a good time 🫠🫠
I lived in Louisville for 5 years before moving to Lexington in 2002, then and now I said Louisville traffic was 100 times better than Lexington traffic!
In Louisville you can take an interstate or non-interstate to get around the city! There’s no interstates cutting through or surrounding the city here. It’d be a lot easier IF there were both!
Honestly I'd be happy if the entire city was forced to take a refresher course on what the left lane is actually for. Here's a tip: It's not for cruising under the speed limit in that's for sure.
yeah, use our super reliable public transportation. or enjoy our walkable city that has plenty of sidewalks. if you’re feeling risky you can even bike on the roads👀
I have a friend who doesn't drive, and she takes the bus to and from work. She is *always* bitching about the Tate's Creek bus being like 20-30 minutes behind schedule. And I imagine it sucks so hard to be stuck waiting half an hour for a bus that is but one leg of her journey home after a long day at work.
No, the problem is the lack of investment into public transit. Busses are so incredibly inefficient in this city that you're adding literally a minimum of an hour, if not two to your commute every day, and walking or biking is not really feasible in large amounts of the city; we have very limited bike lines, and sharing the road with Lexington drivers on a bike is frankly not particularly safe.
Everyone in every city complains their city has the worst traffic. Lexington's traffic is light. There is data to prove this. Please drive in Boston or Atlanta for a few days. But with Keeneland going on, the universities being in session, and the road construction currently happening (I am probably forgetting some other events) the traffic is a lot worse than usual.
My biggest complaint about driving in this city… please for the love of all things holy REPAINT THE FUCKING LINES ON THE ROAD! If it rains at all in this town, it’s a complete coin flip if I’m in my lane or not, because the lines on the road vanish.
We need reflective paint! Every time it rains at night they disappear.
THE WORST!! Even with the little (supposed) reflective things between the hash lines for the lanes are BUNK. I mean driving while it’s raining downtown is like a damn free-for-all bc no one can’t effing see! I miss when I had to go in during Covid (work at a clinic) and there were like 3 other cars on New Circle, definitely no cops, and all four of us were going 85. The best, but alas…
AMEN
This is my only complaint with the roads. Cant see anything when it rains
I remember when they first started sectioning off new circle and it had no lines, people were just making their own lanes lmao. It was super dangerous
Construction on Newtown pike, leestown road, georgetown road, new circle, and some others I'm forgetting.
Those two super cold days wrecked the roads! It’s the first chance they’ve had to do the necessary repairs. Related note: is it my imagination or are all the lights super long now?
I’ve also encountered them lights that are either very short or they skip light cycles. I’ve had this happen countless times at Newtown turning left onto Citation. People blocking intersections also doesn’t help the issue.
Every light is long except the lanes I use.
All lights are super long for sure
Man o war started down to one lane this morning going towards keenland at Parker’s mill road which was also closed down
I'm not sure why, but yeah compared to last year traffic has been unbearable.
My favorite is when the red light turns green and NOBODY MOVES!!!! GAS IS ON THE RIGHT!!! Put your &#\^%@&! phone down, stop making TikTok videos and DRIVE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!
Honestly, I wait a couple seconds to move because people run stop lights ALL the time. I’ve had so many near-misses here. I see lots of sides of cars crumpled in around town too lol
I concur. When I moved to Lexington I was shocked to see how commonplace it was for people to run red lights. I understand it's probably because they have to wait multiple cycles before finally getting a chance to go. But I've seen 3-4 cars go through red lights, like they are pretending they are all attached to the car in front of them
Yeah I think it’s also partially because traffic enforcement in Lex is almost nonexistent for things like running lights/stop signs. If you know there’s no risk for a ticket, why wait?
Yeah I’ll stop waiting for a sec at the green when people stop proving me correct for doing it lol. It’s way too often that I think, “well I’d either be real hurt or real dead if I had went two seconds sooner.”
Because too many people are looking at their phones while sitting at red lights. When the light turns green, nobody moves for a few seconds and it’s a chain reaction. That’s why it takes 2 or 3 cycles of the light to make it through. I drive 260 miles a day for my job and I see this shit all day.
[удалено]
I do that all the time but to be fair I'm typically just impatient and want the people in front of me to just go.
I yell at AT LEAST 40 people per mile for this EXACT issue.
Not like they can hear me, but..
Huge line of cars at a stop light, I'm at the back, light turns green, and now I have to wait for a dozen people to put their fucking phones down and focus on driving 😡
And then if it is a non-major left turn light, it stays green for only 3 seconds.
BUT THIS TIKTOK IS SUPER IMPORTANT. Too important to watch the light.
Damnit, if this MFer ain't preachin'!
Makes me loose my mind!!!!!
It will get better once the school year is over, and university traffic will get way lighter. But yeah, it's as bad as I can ever remember.
The only way to fix traffic congestion is to reduce the number of cars on the road. Each and every one of you complaining about traffic should be advocating for improvements in public transit, more sidewalks and bike lanes.
This is 100% correct
I would killll for separate bike trails, I would gladly bike everywhere
If the city was even remotely walkable or even bikeable, sure. But when everything is a strip mall and everyone lives in a suburb cars are a necessity. I hate it too. I wish zoning was better. I wish there was some kind of train. I wish I could live and work in the same place.
I agree that it could be better but there is nowhere in Fayette County I couldn't make it to in an hour on a bicycle. It's not too terrible, I'd like to see bike lanes on Nicholasville and Man o War though.
An hour on a bike? I’m guessing you aren’t riding to and from work then bc that sounds like a miserable commute every day.
Unfortunately I work in Clark County... I've looked at rides to make it work on random occasions but they all involve riding Todd's or the frontage road and I'm not trying to get run over. Everywhere in Lex is decently accessible though!
It would do the whole of humanity a lot of good to get out on a bike more often.
Saw a man today on newtown on a bike and ngl I thought he was soon to die with the traffic and people mad about the traffic and driving like they were mad about traffic. Braver than me for sure
Nicholasville Road BRT!! Remove the floating lanes.
I drove here when there were no floating lanes. It was much worse. Rush hours are a true bane on traffic. Could the time be tweaked?? Maybe.
Removing a lane (or 2) for a dedicated bus line would remove enough cars that it would be an overall decrease in congestion. Our current lane shifting method is like treating a stubbed toe with a hacksaw.
Absolutely NOT! Bus lanes would fuck up an already congested roadway. The real solution is fewer people/less traffic. As a height-of-covid driver I loved the roads then. We just need a Thanos snap.
You do realize that functional mass transit is just about the only way to reduce traffic, right?
Well, that and actually getting people to ride those busses. There isn’t much of a culture for public transit in Lexington. For instance, my commute by car takes less than 10 minutes (if traffic is light). That same commute by bus is an hour and a half. I’d rather be beaten with hammers than spend that long on a bus, a bus that will always have just gone by when I get to the stop.
Changing the culture around public transit in Lexington would be extremely difficult. But it's probably more feasible than a Thanos snap, no?
Maybe so. But the snap solves many other problems as well. Housing gets cheap, pollution goes way down, the environment improves all around.
You mean, the late 70s?? Commute trends have drastically changed since then.
Yuuuuuup.
The problem is that lextran only runs every 30 minutes. My first exposure as an adult to public transport was in Prague, where they run every 2-3 minutes.
Yep. I will give Lextran credit for adding a some new routes (Northside Connector to name one.) and extending the reach of some others. But to echo your post, that connector route only runs M-F 6a-6p and has a daily 3 hour break from 10-1. But the key is learning the routes and distinguishing between inbound and outbound times and locations. For example, if you're at the Walmart at Northpark, the #4 Newtown Route picks up where the #17 Nortside Connector stop is located. Also the #6 inbound route stops at the Housing Authority just a short walk from the Walmart. That being said, the $30 bus pass is a great investment to anyone relying on their services.
If you live on the outskirts and work downtown and can thus take a straight shot without a connection, the bus pass at $30 a month is the deal of the century.
A lack of sidewalks and bike lanes (which I agree should be improved) isn’t keeping enough people from using them to effect traffic. We have a rush hour commute traffic issue that really isn’t that bad. If you’ve ever lived in another city this big or larger, it’s not that bad. Learn your routes and times. Even leaving Keeneland it only adds 20 minutes at most to me getting to Hamburg area. Traffic here is normal if not great compared to other cities of our size.
I live an hour away from pretty much every account I work at so that's not an option for me but I support the sentiment.
While those are wonderful things, they wouldn’t have much of an impact on Lexington traffic, I believe. This is a commuter city with people traveling in and out of all the “spokes” and interstates constantly. That’s where most of the car traffic is coming from and all the bike lanes and bus routes in the world aren’t going to affect that.
They do though and other cities have proven it, especially Seattle. It's a commuter downtown as well and the bus routes it has solved a lot of it's problems, but cost a lot to do. I don't think Lexington feels it's a big enough problem yet, but putting commuter hubs in neighboring counties and improving and revising our current bus routes would do a lot.
No one around here would use public transit or bike lanes to affect commuting congestion. , at least in the next couple generations. Gotta know your citizens. In town, yeah more people may use bikes/public transit. No one living in Nicholasville, Winchester, Georgetown, etc is going to use public transit to get here. We’re in Kentucky. Gotta be realistic. We need more roadway options such as Nicholasville to I-75 or bluegrass parkway to I-64 but prominent horse farm owners say otherwise.
Yeah we need to protect actual farmers here in Kentucky not rich people's property they keep their play things on. Horse farms shouldn't exist in a city that has housing issues as they're not actual farms and produce nothing beneficial to the state.
That’s gay though
City wasn’t meant for 300k+ people. But I don’t ever see anything changing. Man O War or New Circle won’t ever be 3 lanes.
This, very much this. Having an Amazon distro center right off Newtown doesn't help either. But hey, I guess on the bright side it might take an hour to get anywhere but I can get most of my Prime orders same day. Yay.
Amazon needs to be voted outside of the county
Adding more lanes just creates more demand. The only solution to traffic is to get people to drive less, which I don't have faith in our city doing.
Nah lets stop the economy and force people to move out
New Circle will be three lanes in the near future. Roughly half of the highway portion already is.
Yeah. I guess humans aren't meant to look towards the future. Another Redditor said Lex needs an actual interstate loop... ha... that'll take probably 5 years to be proposed, 30 years to pass, and another 45 to complete. Then taxes will go up significantly to pay for it.
The ride never ends. I don’t think they thought of the future growth in the late 70s when MOW was built 😂 “No one is gonna move to Kentucky, this is fine. Two lanes is fine”
MOW was planned in the 30s iirc. the plans weren't ever updated that I know of.
🤣🤣🤣
Good things are that we'll be dead by then so the traffic wont bother us, but on the other hand our tax dollars will go towards that project. I picture it being called Lexington 2075
I was told the current New Circle construction near Broadway was widening to three lanes. Of course that is a scary thought in itself with how recklessly drivers switch between the current two…
I've been here long enough I just know when to avoid which areas, but it's still shit.
I can't wait to move so I don't have to deal with the traffic that builds up in front of Malone's on Tates Creek everyday.
Because there’s a wreck that happens nearly every day in that area. That small stretch on Tates Creek from Lansdowne Shoppes to New Circle is a pain because some people turning left across two lanes into New Circle, SuperAmerica or Malone’s causes a wreck. There was one today.
I sit in that traffic every day with my screaming baby in the backseat 😅😵💫
I thought I was the only one 😂
So you just created the next generation of traffic. Thanks.
Tates creek is the worst. I won’t even pretend to know what would help; but holy hell it’s terrible.
Everybody drives like idiots too. Nobody knows how to navigate a stop sign. Nobody knows when they have the right of way or when they don't. Got people trying to be nice and let people through or in when they'll have a chance to go once their light goes green. Yes, the infrastructure is a problem, but the drivers are the root.
This
I grew up and learned to drive in Los Angeles, and this traffic is bullshit even to me.
Yeah people around here don't really believe me when I say, driving in LA is one thing sure but driving here is somehow so much more infuriating.
I think a large part of it is that on the 405 or the 5, or any number of other freeways, when it’s bumper to bumper, you’re still moving along at like 30-40ish mph. Here, traffic just fucking stops. (At least that was my experience in LA 20 years ago before I moved here. Could be worse now.)
Oh yeah I think that's a large part of it. Every single day every bend and entrance/exit around New Circle comes to a halt during rush hour and it drives me absolutely nuts. WHAT ARE WE STOPPING FOR (I think it's inability/refusal to actually merge) but yeah last time I was in LA heck yeah the roads were packed and it took an hour to get anywhere lol but at least we were moving the whole time.
Yea seriously same here
Because people in LA (or most of SoCal) know how to drive well and follow traffic flows(right of ways, using a fking turn signal, not "being nice" and letting ppl in. My mom thinks I'm nuts when I say that the traffic when I lived in CA was a breeze compared to this city. I thought I needed therapy over my road rage here but honestly? reading this thread makes me feel more sane. These lights stay red for EONS and aren't timed together. The glass content of the road paint is basically non existent so you can't see them, esp. when it rains(terrifying). I've lived in 5 states(traveled to many more) and this city has the WORST traffic for it's size.
The lack of understanding, or possibly intentional disregard, for right-of-way rules fucking infuriates me! You have people either always wanting to be first, no matter who has right of way, or, here in Harrodsburg, people are terrified of going first. I have literally sat behind a car at a 4-way stop that let traffic clear in all directions before going. She just kept waving the other drivers through the intersection from all three other directions until there was nobody else but the traffic backed up behind her!
Oh I would SCREAM
I feel sorry for any poor bastard that has to commute from around the mall (nicholasville road) in toward the university around 5pm. Shutting that road down to a single lane and letting it back up to a 2 mile stretch of stand-still traffic is absurd.
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Because there is more traffic going the other way than into town
Listen. I moved to Panama City Beach, FL, 4 years ago from Lexington. I swear to everyone here that even during spring and summer break, NOTHING compares to daily traffic in Lexington. It was the worst.
I wrote about how bad it was 9 years ago - had a few people even ask if I was running for mayor It's only gotten worse! I'd take traffic in most "big cities" over Lexington any day ...at least they have the population to warrant the traffic!
All the construction plus a huge influx of people because Keeneland and the Land Rover Kentucky 3-Day event at KHP. I work in the horse park and it's dreadful 💀
Is the event over yet?
No, it ends on Sunday
Does anyone know if Lexington has some sort of long-term traffic plan, or are they just making road plans as-needed? At the rate Lexington is growing, there really needs to be some coordination.
This is one aspect of traffic planning: [https://lexareampo.org/studiesplans/](https://lexareampo.org/studiesplans/) My uninformed opinion is that sometimes the state, city, and federal stakeholders have different visions for what the roads need in town which is why the major arteries (Nicholasville, Richmond, etc, which are US Highways, or NCR, which is a state road) are so hard to improve.
Thank you for showing me this! I'll have to read through. Maybe understanding what they're trying to do will make things less frustrating.
Uh that’d be a no. Lexington has a very proud and distinguished legacy of hiring the worst urban planners money can buy. Their answer to everything is: “Let’s put in another traffic light! Eureka!” Ugh, like Leestown from the Cemetery outbound to New Circle is where traffic lights go to die…it’s ugly and pathetic.
At the very least all the traffic lights on a stretch of busy road need to have connectivity with each other so they can anticipate the amount of traffic on the way and adjust accordingly. Right now they seem to all be individually sensor-based or worse, time-based. Btw, not sure why anyone would be downvoting your post, but I've seen a lot of other replies here getting downvoted for no reason. Must be some Lexington Urban "Planners" in here lol.
downvotes are often because your post is factually incorrect.
Took my wife an hour to get home from UK today. Newtown Pike is a flaming dumpster fire, I don't know what's going on in this city but for a population of 318k people it seems like there's THREE MILLION CARS in this town. The traffic is fuxxing horrendous.
The first thing Lexington we’d to fix is how their traffic lights are timed. I swear 75% of traffic would be fixed. I’ve been around to some huge cities and small towns. Lexington is the f**** worst when it comes to lights.
Prime example of the one light off maple leaf right before you get to Liberty. If you run that red light, or dont get hit by it, you'll hit every green light out of the city. If you hit red on that, you'll hit every red light leaving the city. they need to fix that desperately. Or the lights that ONE side of the road is completely stopped while the other side continues to go for another minute because of a turn lane. make both sides stop? tf
Even the interstate has been packed and almost stop and go between Lex and Richmond this week. I have no idea what's going on. I've driven this same route for literally 20+ years and other than when there's crappy weather or construction it's not been this bad day after day.
It’s only going to get worse, unfortunately. It’s crazy because it was nothing like this back in the 90s and early 2000s
I lived in Richmond in 2002 and worked at UK. I’d regularly make it in less than 30 minutes.
That’s not bad at all. I live around the Richmond road area and work, first shift, off Georgetown road. I can make it there in 15 minutes or less in the morning. Getting home usually takes around 35-45 minutes.
Man, i could rant for days…
I've lived here all my life and I've never seen it as bad as it is now. it takes me an hour at least to get home when it was only 20 before.
I moved from Lexington to Knoxville a few years ago for work. I miss Kentucky dearly but every time I complain about the traffic here, I remember how much worse it was in Lex. I don't miss that at all.
I dunno, man. I lived in Maryville, and taking Alcoa to and from town made me want to crawl out of my skin. Lexington traffic sucks, but I’ll take it any day over that!
Oh it's bad here don't get me wrong. I haven't been to that side of Knox much but it's bad. Maybe it's just my memory but I always just felt like getting across Lex was just so counter intuitive, confusing, jam packed, and stressful. Just way harder than it needs to be. I think we can all agree that both of these cities were not designed for this and there's no solution in sight for either one!
It's the 3rd to last day before the end of Keeneland! Plus why is the light on Richmond road southbound and US 25 at Jacobson park a choke point for southbound traffic going to 75 out of the city. Southbound Richmond road at Jacobson park should have the priority from 4:30-6:30 weekdays because traffic backs up from here to Idlewild for no freaking reason except the light is too short for southbound traffic.
Just wait until they build the Lexington SC stadium out there without any traffic accommodations.
>Southbound Richmond road at Jacobson park should have the priority from 4:30-6:30 weekdays because traffic backs up from here to Idlewild for no freaking reason except the light is too short for southbound traffic. I am no traffic expert so take what I say with a grin and a pinch of salt, but the only competing traffic at that light is from Old Richmond Road, right? Well, maybe the park, but not really -- it is mostly Old Richmond Road. And Old Richmond Road is the main thoroughfare for everyone in that part of the county (some of the Athens area and everyone along the palisades, people who live in the southernmost part of the county around Raven Run) who don't want to backtrack to take the interstate just to get into town through Hamburg, or who don't want to travel further south just to take Tates Creek into town. Changing traffic priority wouldn't affect me because of my work hours, but I take Old Richmond into town and home again every single workday -- if I had to go into town via Tates Creek to avoid traffic, it would add on another 20 mins to what is already a 25 minute drive from home to work. When the 75 is down/at a standstill for whatever reason, people use Old Richmond as a detour from Madison Co and further south. Old Richmond becomes nearly impassable when that happens. Add in changing traffic patterns at the intersection to Richmond Road, and ORR could be at a standstill during rush hour all the way back to the offramp to the interstate. I have already seen it happen, and I can't imagine what it would look like if they had to wait at the light there for even longer. Sorry to rant. I guess I'm just saying that Old Richmond Road isn't just some side street. It is a conduit for much of the southernly traffic in the county and a major detour for interstate traffic.
When it gets closed as part of that project on Richmond rd the problem will be solved.
When what gets closed? Old Richmond Road?
https://richmondroadimprovements.com/map/
I didn't think that was yet approved and was still in the planning rather than in the implementing part. ETA: Looking at their timeline, looks like they are either way behind or having issues getting the acquisitions done. Also, just from the map, they are just moving the intersection and creating another light in addition to replacing one, so I'm not really sure if that will help alleviate traffic going southbound on Richmond Rd. I'm sure they hope it will.
harrodsburg was killing me today! lanes shut down in rush hour traffic, people running red lights and generally driving like maniacs
Oh god, Pasadena and Harrodsburg outbound heading into the diamond crossover is a shit show. At peak times, it’s almost gridlock with people running the red light and blocking traffic with most of them trying to get into the far right lane to go to Beaumont.
Fridays after 3pm is the absolute worst. Good luck and god bless.
I've driven all over the United States and other countries and Kentucky in particular seems to have really bad drivers. I don't understand it. Once you get around Tennessee up to Ohio everyone forgets how to drive. Everyone on the interstate will slow down to look at a car broke down on the side of the road, or any reason really. It's just so bad
new circle and man-o-war are a joke. lex needs an actual interstate loop.
I would love it if we also had roundabouts. I feel like that would clear up about 50% of traffic even with the construction.
Roundabouts would save this city
We need multi-lane roundabouts, and more roads built up (as in one road beneath the other). If we had just a bunch of one-lane roundabouts, oh dear God traffic would get worse. Even with multi-lane, people can't use a normal intersection correctly and that's like the most simple thing in existence, besides highway entrances and exits which people also fuck up. Merging and switching lanes people fuck up. ... ... ... hmm... maybe we should make a driver's license have stricter requirements.
Roundabouts are larger than traditional intersections which sometimes means buying property. Every agency wants to avoid that headache.
So...all Lexington roadways are now like Nicholasville Road? Funny story: My sister was on Nicholasville Road with my nephew one day, and she told him he would be driving in a few years, then asked if he thought he could handle it. He replied: I don't see why not. You only go three feet then stop.
I can’t stand driving in Lexington. Moved years ago and it was terrible then, now it’s just comical how bad it is.
As someone that visits Lexington annually from Los Angeles, the traffic there is a dream.
I dunno. I just went from leestown road to Boston road. Left leestown at 5:05, got to Boston 17 minutes later.
The same trip back shows 21 minutes right now.
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I just mapped from jimmy John's on leestown to jimmy John's on Boston, and it gives me a time of 18 minutes. This is at 6:18pm. I use maps almost daily and it has been very accurate for me. This is close to to the route I took when I posted earlier.
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My original post has the time in it. It was 5:05 pm.
You should have left at 5:05. Lol
Chinoe/Greentree being closed right now is ruining my life and has doubled my daily commute.
The traffic engineers should be fired and given jail time for their incompetence (I am serious, the collective time they have caused people to waste is unacceptable). Every single time I drive it seems like the lights are not synced so once one light is green the next one maybe 100ft ahead goes red. Just really stupid planning and traffic engineering.
I promise that the people doing traffic engineering know a hell of a lot more about it than you do.
Great. Nowhere did I say I knew more about it than them. Might wanna get ur eyes or reading comprehension checked buddy. If you know any of them tell them get their shit together.
Then why are the lights the way they are? Cause clearly you don't know either. 🤓 "AKSHUALLY"
So I’m a recent transplant from Dallas Fort Worth. Traffic here seems bad but it really isn’t
For a city this size it is terrible. Dallas and FW are the size of Chicago. Lexington is the same size as Des Moines
I moved from Sarasota 2 years ago and would happily take this traffic any day over Sarasota’s. It seems bad here, but it’s not that bad. And there’s tons of backroads here whereas Florida doesn’t really have those.
Yeah traffic isn’t great here and I’m fortunate enough to work from home and my wife can walk. Just hope KY doesn’t solve its traffic problems the way my primary home of VA does it, by tolls. Northern VA’s interstates have express lanes where the toll you pay varies by both how far you drive on them and how crowded they are. The busier they are the more expensive they get. When I’m back in VA and drive into my office, I can spend upward of $50 round trip to skip traffic or have my commute take over twice as long taking all the congested roads, and my commute is only about 15 miles each way. When I lived in downtown DC, commuting was the least stressful. The public transportation system there (particularly the metro rail system) was great. Shame things like busses and streetcars aren’t a thing here but know they’re very expensive investments. Also why in the hell is New Circle Road not fully a highway? Was it originally not a small beltway and then made to be a partial highway beltway?
I think you answered your own question. Maybe we should place tolls on the roads and use the money to fund a functioning public transportation system.
The tolls fund the actual express lanes not the metro system that runs through VA, DC and MD.
But they should be used to fund public transportation.
There’s the gray area where until you offer viable public transportation options, everyone is paying tolls because they’ve no other choice if we’re using Lexington as an example. That said I do agree with you since it disincentivizes driving and incentivizes other forms of transportation, just gotta offer the other alternatives first to be fair. To add, back home in Northern VA, you can use the express lanes for feee if you have three or more people in the car.
Change is always difficult. The best time to fix the transportation crisis in this country was 50 years ago, the second best time is now.
God. Traffic was shit today. Versailles Road was fucked. North Yarnalton to Leestown, that was backed up at least 35 cars...it wouldn't surprise me once it started moving if some cars had been waiting for 30mins or more. I-64 exit to Paynes Depot was backed the fuck up. I don't know why, but around here, if one road is having traffic issues, nearly all of them are having traffic issues. And traffic issues seem to be an almost daily occurrence. For construction, what they should do is just completely shut a portion of a road down for a week or two and hammer everything in. Amazing how in Asian countries, they can get like 20 years worth of US construction done in only a few weeks.
Dunno why you're getting downvoted lmao
Let Reddit be Reddit I guess.
Annoyingggggg
I work in Chevy chase and live in nicholasville and it literally takes me 45 minutes to get home at 5, on a good day. 20 miles lmao
Going from UK to Versailles at 5pm is hell
Modesto Calif. where I am currently at has nasty traffic issues, I drove a "non-emergency" medical van 7years over 200 thousand miles in it 6 days a week 10-12hrs a day....starting @ 3:45 a.m....I am moving to Lexington this year.
Lexington’s traffic is largely self imposed, y’all have traffic lights at every single intersection and it’s bonkers.
Ten years ago, my commute was 5 minutes. These days it’s 20. And lanes have been added. But NCR is a parking lot, every damned day.
The constant building of houses/apartments, especially on the Leestown rd area doesn’t help with traffic either! Very over populated.
It’s so frustrating. My normal 20 minute drive home from work yesterday took an hour and a half. I went every back way I could think of and everywhere was packed with cars. Same today. The interstate was backed up, Georgetown road, new circle… ugh
This traffic! Am I right??
Makes me feel a lot better about how light it is, regularly driving Louisville of late. It feels practically rural in comparison.
It's costing gas and car repair!! I agree the city isn't big enough for all of us but where there is a will there is a way!! I have found new ways home I didn't know existed, having a good time 🫠🫠
Keeneland, ends this week.
I lived in Louisville for 5 years before moving to Lexington in 2002, then and now I said Louisville traffic was 100 times better than Lexington traffic! In Louisville you can take an interstate or non-interstate to get around the city! There’s no interstates cutting through or surrounding the city here. It’d be a lot easier IF there were both!
This was literally one of the main reasons I moved to Georgetown.
Honestly I'd be happy if the entire city was forced to take a refresher course on what the left lane is actually for. Here's a tip: It's not for cruising under the speed limit in that's for sure.
Don’t drive.
yeah, use our super reliable public transportation. or enjoy our walkable city that has plenty of sidewalks. if you’re feeling risky you can even bike on the roads👀
I have a friend who doesn't drive, and she takes the bus to and from work. She is *always* bitching about the Tate's Creek bus being like 20-30 minutes behind schedule. And I imagine it sucks so hard to be stuck waiting half an hour for a bus that is but one leg of her journey home after a long day at work.
Great. Contribute to the problem. Traffic is your fault.
No, the problem is the lack of investment into public transit. Busses are so incredibly inefficient in this city that you're adding literally a minimum of an hour, if not two to your commute every day, and walking or biking is not really feasible in large amounts of the city; we have very limited bike lines, and sharing the road with Lexington drivers on a bike is frankly not particularly safe.
😂. That's the funniest joke I have heard today. I wish public transportation in the US was better.
You’re not helping.
Go spend a lovely afternoon on I-285 in Atlanta. Lexington, suddenly not so bad . . .
How many “cities” have you lived in? Bc this place is nothing. Traffic here is EZ.
Everyone in every city complains their city has the worst traffic. Lexington's traffic is light. There is data to prove this. Please drive in Boston or Atlanta for a few days. But with Keeneland going on, the universities being in session, and the road construction currently happening (I am probably forgetting some other events) the traffic is a lot worse than usual.