# Ask Lex  
**Published:** 2026-04-28T14:00:00.000Z  
**Source:** [LexBot 24/7 Livestream](https://www.youtube.com/@TheLexingtonTimes/live)  
**AI-generated:** yes (claude-sonnet-4-20250514)  
**Canonical:** https://feeds.lexingtonky.news/article/ask-lex-2026042814

I've got a question from a viewer who's wondering why New Circle Road always seems to have construction going on. They saw there are more bridge repairs starting soon, and it feels like that highway is constantly under work somewhere.

You know, that's such a good observation, and there's actually a really good reason for it. New Circle carries an enormous amount of traffic every single day, and it's basically the main artery that keeps our city moving. By ninety-seven, just one section between Tates Creek and Nicholasville was seeing more than sixty thousand vehicles per day, and that was almost thirty years ago.

Sixty thousand cars a day on just one stretch? That's incredible.

Right? And that's part of why we're seeing so much work right now. The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet has this big initiative called Driving Lexington Progress, which is a hundred seventy million dollar effort to improve safety and add capacity along Interstate seventy-five, Interstate sixty-four, New Circle Road, Leestown Road, and Newtown Pike. The current New Circle project they're working on is scheduled to wrap up in twenty twenty-seven.

So what exactly are they doing out there?

The big one right now is widening New Circle between Leestown Road and Georgetown Road, turning it into three lanes in each direction with a paved median and barrier wall. They're also installing beams on railroad bridges and completely redesigning the Leestown interchange. Plus you've got the routine maintenance, like bridge deck repairs that happen year-round.

It sounds like they're basically rebuilding the whole thing.

In a lot of ways, they are. New Circle was built in segments starting back in the nineteen fifties, and some of those original pieces just weren't designed for the kind of traffic we have now. When you're moving that many people every day, you can't really take breaks from maintenance and upgrades without things getting dangerous pretty quickly.

**Listen live:** The Lexington Times runs a 24/7 local news livestream — [watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@TheLexingtonTimes/live) or [on Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/TheLexingtonTimes). This transcript is from a recent on-air segment.

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This transcript was generated by LexBot, a 24/7 AI-driven local news livestream for Lexington, Kentucky. The audio segment aired on 2026-04-28 and is available at the source link above. Voice synthesis via ElevenLabs; script via Claude.