11/15/2011 - Mayor Declares City Ready for Winter Weather
Interactive Snow Map
You can find out which streets around you are cleared during a snow event and get live updates on street clearing progress from the comfort of your own home.
Louisville is Ready for Snow!
The Louisville Metro Snow Team is made up nearly 300 employees from three agencies - Metro Public Works, Solid Waste Management Services and Metro Parks. The Snow Team uses 169 pieces of equipment to clear 1,362 miles of road in Louisville. The total two-lane miles covered by crews on designated snow routes equals 2,721.
Louisville's snow routes focus on major roads, school and TARC bus routes, arteries to local employers and hospital and emergency routes.
The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) and private contractors clear more than 700 miles. There are about 1,000 miles of neighborhood streets that are not cleared, except during a declared snow emergency.
For the third year, as a part of an ongoing agreement with KYTC, city crews will treat and clear most state roads and highways. That equals about 315 miles of roads in Louisville, including roads such as Shelbyville Road, Beulah Church Road and Dixie Highway. The state will continue to clear all interstates.
Before a snow or ice event hits, the snow team also pretreat roads using brine. The city owns its own brine-maker, which can produce 5,000 gallons of the salt-solution in an hour. Brine is effective and cheap, costing just 2-cents per gallon. The solution is sprayed on dry pavement over 930 miles of brine routes that target main thoroughfares, hills and overpasses. Brine prevents moisture from adhering to the roadways and helps diminish icy roads. Again this winter, crews will also use IceProof in the brine mixture, which allows them to apply brine to roads even when the temperature drops to single digits.
The city's salt storage facilities are well-stocked and ready to fight winter weather. Before the season's first snowflake, the city had 38,300 tons of salt available, including 15,300 tons on hand at six storage facilities as well as 23,000 tons stored underground for emergency reserve.
During winter months, Public Works crews move to a night shift for snow operations and pothole repairs. The night shift allows an immediate response to snow or ice, instead of calling out crews from their homes.
When winter weather isn't a threat, crews are available to repair road cracks and potholes during overnight hours when traffic flow is low. The shift also helps reduce overtime.