Lexington to begin citing drivers parked in bike lanes

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Starting Sept. 27, the Lexington Police Department and Lex Park will begin issuing citations for vehicles parked in bike lanes.

In August, Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council approved updates to the city’s rules governing where cars can idle or park on roads to now include bike lanes. This was recommended by a group of LFUCG staff, Council Members, and community advocates who met throughout 2025 to come up with ways to improve roadway safety.

“We just wanted to focus on things that we could do in a year to two years,” said Dave Sevigny, Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council member for District 10. “This ordinance on bike safety was something that came out of that group as an action item to basically take care of no parking in bike lanes, because we got so much feedback during the STREEET Safety Task Force related to that one specific safety issue.”

One of 12 recommendations from the task force was to ban parking in the city’s bike lanes.

“We didn’t have any kind of prohibition for people parking or stopping in bike lanes all the time. And hundreds of cyclists told us that that’s a really dangerous situation,” said Tom Eblen, Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council member for District 3. “As a cyclist myself, I had seen this many times: you’re riding down the street in a bike lane and then all of a sudden there’s something in front of it, and you have to veer into traffic and get back in it.”

Lexington police have been issuing warnings for those parking within bike lanes as part of a 30-day grace period, which ends Sept. 27. The fines are $50 per violation, and the city could also tow vehicles that pose a public safety concern.

“This policy is just a fairly simple thing to implement. It has an impact on a certain group of people that is, that’s big, and it really doesn’t impact the other people that much,” Sevigny said. “You’ve got to incrementally change things in order to make things slightly safer for somebody, and this is just an incremental change.”

Why enforcement instead of physical barriers?

“We do these quick builds occasionally. Like High Street, we did this quick build where we actually took out a lane, and we created a space for bikers. And we actually created some parking. So, I think you find that sometimes when you build it, they come,” Sevigny said.

“Small bike lanes on the side of major streets is really kind of the best we can do right now for many of these streets,” Eblen said.

Long-term plans for new development

Urban County Council has adopted the Complete Streets Manual to ensure new developments include safety features within the design.

“Future streets that are kind of major collector streets like that will have a protected bike lane. It’ll have a protected pedestrian lane and then a vehicle lane so that you’ll separate those. But, you know, retrofitting older streets is a much more difficult thing,” Eblen said. “We have a long-term plan to try to reduce traffic fatalities in Lexington and Fayette County to zero.”