Request By:
Mr. Mark E. Gormley
Woodford County Attorney
Courthouse
Versailles, Kentucky 40383
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
Williams Lane is a part of the Woodford County road system and is maintained by the county. It is primarily a connector road between the Big Sink Pike and Payne's Mill Road, which, we assume, are county roads.
Williams Lane is little used by the traveling public except for persons owning property in that vicinity. Consequently, Williams Lane is not maintained by the county road department at a high level of maintenance.
Property owners in the vicinity of Williams Lane have complained to the Woodford Fiscal Court, contending that the connector road is an attractive nuisance, attracting persons dumping garbage and persons using it as a "lovers lane" . These nearby owners have requested fiscal court to place gates, equipped with locks, at both ends of the lane, with keys being distributed to only the property owners along the lane, who presumably, from the owners' viewpoint, would have a "legitimate" use of the lane.
The fiscal court would like to accommodate the request of the land owners. However, the question is whether such gates can be erected without formally closing the road to the public and ending the county maintenance.
KRS 178.010(1)(b) defines "county roads", and reads in part: "'County roads' are public roads which have been accepted by the fiscal court of the county as a part of the county road system. . . . ."
The level of maintenance of a county road, such as Williams Lane, is irrelevant. The significant point is that it is a county road, as defined by KRS 178.010. Further, even though the lane is used mostly by property owners located in that vicinity, the lane is available to the general traveling public in Woodford County.
The placing of the gates with locks and keys on each end of the lane, such that the general traveling public would not have access to the lane, would amount to a practical discontinuance of that connector road.
The principle was established years ago that once a road is a public road of the county, it remains a county road unless it is abandoned or discontinued in the manner provided by the statutes in KRS Chapter 178. Brown v. Roberts, 246 Ky. 316, 55 S.W.2d 9 (1932) 10. See KRS 178.050 and 178.070.
It is our opinion that the placing of gates, with locks and keys, on each end of the lane cannot be done without formally closing the road to the public, as prescribed by statute, and removing it from the county road system.