Explainer: Public Transportation

What is Public Transportation in Lexington?

Lexington's public transportation agency is Lextran. Founded in 1972, the agency has provided bus and paratransit service to residents throughout Lexington.

Lextran's primary services include a fixed-route bus service and Wheels, a paratransit service that picks up and drops off residents with severe disabilities who are unable to use the fixed-route bus service. In Fiscal Year 2025, there were ~3.5 million rides taken on Lextran buses and ~170,000 trips using Lextran's Wheels service.

Lextran is primarily funded through a property tax of 6 cents per $100 of taxable property. The property tax revenue represents roughly 70% of Lextran's annual budget. In Fiscal Year 2025, that tax brought roughly $25.5 million in revenue to Lextran.

Other sources of funding for Lextran include:

• Federal funding (14% of Lextran's budget)
• State funding (5%)
• University of Kentucky's partnership with Lextran to provide free bus service for all students and employees (7%)
• Passenger fares (3%)
• Other small revenue sources (3%)

Why does Public Transportation matter?

Nationwide, cities are reevaluating urban transportation. Since the 1950s, transportation networks have primarily been planned in order to move cars quickly. Other modes of transportation, including walking, bicycling, and public transportation, were deprioritized.

But there is growing interest in expanding public transportation infrastructure, including in Lexington! Why is that the case?

• Increased public transit ridership is one of the most effective ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
• Using public transit is much more affordable than car ownership.
• Walking, biking, and good public transit can lead to strong economic growth for cities.
• More transportation options outside of car ownership can lead to greater access to job opportunities for low-income residents.
  • 51% of Lextran's trips are for people going to work or going to school.

In our 2022 On the Table survey, Public Transportation was the second most discussed topic. In an analysis of the survey's Public Transporation data, Krasi Staykov found:

• "[On the Table] respondents were overwhelmingly in favor of increased public transportation. Only 16 of the 1744 responses, or .05%, advocated for a reduction or removal of public transportation infrastructure. An addition 6 responses, or .03% advocated for a reduction or removal of bike infrastructure.
• There were several recurring themes for what improvements to public transit respondents were suggesting. The most popular suggestions were:
  • Adding more bus routes, particularly routes that would avoid downtown transfers
  • Adding more bus stops along existing routes, particularly inside New Circle Road
  • Improving bus stops and the transit center, including seating, covered waiting areas, sidewalk access, and lighting.
  • Increasing the frequency of existing routes

How can you get involved in Public Transportation?

If you want to get involved in Public Transportation decisions in Lexington, here are some good places to start!

• Reach out to your Councilmember about public transit. While LFUCG has no direct authority over Lextran, they have frequently supported projects for Lextran and do have the authority to approve or reject Lextran's annual budget.
• Attend meetings of and apply to join the Lextran Board of Directors!
• Reach out to Lextran staff with thoughts and questions.
• Reach out to Lexington's Division of Planning to learn how planning and development policies affect Lextran.
• Get involved with Living Streets Lexington!
• Learn more about BUILD's advocacy for microtransit.

What else do I need to know about Public Transportation?

How can you ride Lextran's bus system?

If you want to use Lextran to get around, you can start with figuring out where Lextran's routes and stops are.

• You can look at Lextran's route map here. Most routes move along major roadways in Lexington and converge at the Transit Center in downtown Lexington.

• The MyStop app, Transit app, and Google Maps can all give you directions on how to get from one place to another using Lextran's bus system.
  • Each app also shows real-time information on where buses are, if they are late or on-time, and when they will arrive at your nearest bus stop.
• If you can't access any of these apps, each bus stop has an assigned number. Riders can text "LX" plus their bus stop number to 321-123 and receive a text back with updates on when the nearest bus is expected to arrive at the stop.
  • Each bus stop tells you what bus routes use that stop.

• Lextran rides are $1 per trip for adults.
  • Riders can either pay in cash on the bus (only in $1 and $5 bills), or buy a pass either online or in-person. Available at many locations, riders can purchase passes at  Lexington Kroger stores and the Loudon Administrative Office. 
  • The cost of passes and fares vary, with an Adult 30 day pass being $30, but a pass for 15 rides being $20. You can find a full list of available passes here.
  • Reduced fares are available to senior citizens, those with disabilities, veterans, students, and those on Medicare as long as the rider shows the bus driver a valid ID.
  • University of Kentucky students and employees are able to ride all Lextran buses for free, so long as they show the bus drive their UK ID.

You can view this YouTube video from Lextran with more step-by-step details on how to ride a Lextran bus.

An important etiquette expectation mentioned in the video is keeping in mind that the seats in the front of the bus is priority, accessible seating, reserved for people who may not be able to walk to the back of the bus.

How can you use Lextran Wheels?

Wheels is Lextran's paratransit service. It specifically caters to those with disabilities, providing them with a door-to-door service they can make reservations for. Wheels is a contracted service, meaning Lextran pays a separate agency to operate the service.

• There is no comprehensive list of what disabilities allow someone to qualify for Wheels service. Instead, someone applying for Wheels must have a doctor's note verifying that they have some kind of disability that prevents them from being able to use Lextran's bus system.
• You can review and fill out a digital Wheels application form here.
• Trips using Wheels may be booked as early as 14 days prior to the trip, or by to 4:45pm the day before at the latest.
• Fares are $1.6o each way for trips within ¾ mile of a Lextran fixed-route bus stop, and $2 each way for trips that start or end farther than ¾ of a Lextran bus stop
  • One personal care attendant (PCA) may ride for free, and companions may ride with any passenger at the same rate per person.

Wheels performance issues and microtransit

In 2022, RAPT Dev took over as the service contractor for Wheels. In 2023 and 2024, Wheels saw many performance issues such as late pick-ups for trips, drivers not arriving at all to pick up riders, and several vehicle accidents.

The Lexington-Herald Leader reported in 2024 on many of these issues, finding that RAPT Dev's on-time rate for trips hovered from 50% to 79% between October 2022 and December 2023 – the contract betwen Lextran and RAPT Dev sets a goal of a 90% on-time rate for trips.

This resulted in the company being fined nearly $70,000 over the course of two months for hundreds of missed or excessively late pick-ups, according to the Herald-Leader. 

• In December of 2023, RAPT Dev was fined $32,100 38 missed trips and 182 excessively late trips (trips later than 30 minutes).
• In January of 2024, thet fined $37,400 for 120 missed trips, 249 excessively late trips, four accidents, and five complaints for rude driver behavior.

As of January 2025, RAPT Dev's on-time rate for trips was just over 70%.

In response to Wheel's declining performance, BUILD, an advocacy organization comprised of several churches in Lexington, began advocating heavily for Lextran to implement a microtransit service.

• Microtransit is a broad term used to describe public transportation that typically provides door-to-door or curb-to-curb service using smaller vehicles like cars or vans.
• You can think of it as a publicly funded Uber or Lyft style service, where a rider could book a trip on an app and have a driver pick them up within 30 minutes of booking.

BUILD believes a microtransit service could fill existing transit gaps for people who live too far away from a bus stop who cannot afford private microtransit services like Uber or Lyft, and for whom Wheels is too unreliable.

Lextran funded a Microtransit Feasibility Study to outline what a microtransit service and a microtransit pilot project could look like in Lexington. You can read a detailed breakdown of the Feasibility Study here:

Lextran to present microtransit feasibility study this week

On June 3rd, Council will learn what a microtransit pilot could look like in Lexington.

The CivicLex WeeklyAdrian Paul Bryant

Lextran has consistently argued that they do not have enough funding to support a microtransit pilot or service. In the Fiscal Year 2026 Budget, Council allocated $250,000 to Lextran for a microtransit pilot.

• The Feasibility Study estimated that a two year microtransit pilot project would cost roughly $2.3 million.
• Lextran would need to find a robust source of outside funding, or a new source of revenue for themselves, to implement a pilot project similar to the one recommended in the Microtransit Feasibility Study.

Using Bluegrass RIDE to get to Nicholasville and Danville

The Lextran bus system serves the whole city of Lexington, but it doesn’t leave the Urban Service Area. An intercity or regional bus takes riders across county lines. The Bluegrass RIDE bus, for example, travels multiple times a day between Lexington, Nicholasville, and Danville.

The Bluegrass RIDE regional service runs between Lexington, Nicholasville, and Danville Monday through Friday, four times a day. Exact route times and locations can be found on the Bluegrass RIDE website.

The Bluegrass RIDE bus stops four places in Lexington: the Greyhound Bus Stop on New Circle Road, BCTC Campus on Newtown Pike, the Lextran Transit Center, and the UK Hospital. 

The bus will leave each stop at the time noted on the schedule, and no earlier. Passengers should plan to get to their stop about 5 minutes early so they have time to board the bus.

The regional bus leaves the Lextran station at 10:47 AM, so Sami arrives around 10:45. The Lexington stops do not have any signs, so riders should make sure they are visible and keep an eye out.

Upon boarding, the driver will introduce themself and ask for the bus fare. These buses can ONLY accept cash, and they can not make change. There is no drop box, so hand this fare directly to the driver. 

The Bluegrass RIDE bus stops four places in Jessamine County:

• Downtown Nicholasville on the intersection of York and Walnut Street
• Walmart
• Hobby Lobby at Brannon Crossing 
• Goodwill at Brannon Crossing 

The Nicholasville and Walmart stops have signs, but the Hobby Lobby and Goodwill stops do not. The bus pulls up at the front entrance of each.

In Danville, the bus stops at the Centre College bus stop and the downtown bus garage. (These two spots are a short walk away from each other.) 

Public Transportation Resources

Want to learn more about Public Transportation in Lexington?

• Plan a trip on a Lextran bus!
• Read Lextran's 2022 Comprehensive Operations Analysis, which sets a number of goals for how to improve Lextran's services.
• Review our 2022 On the Table dataset to see what people are saying about Public Transportation in Lexington!