Request By:
Mr. Bobby Roots
Magistrate
834 West Main Street
Campbellsville, Kentucky 42718
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
As you mentioned, KRS 178.290(2) provides that the fiscal court may, where needed, build and maintain suitable areas for the safe turning around of school buses.
You need to know whether or not the fiscal court can maintain a drive or road that is not on the county road system in order for a school bus to reach an area to turn around. Specifically, if a bus has to travel two or three tenths of a mile from the county road over a private drive in order to reach a suitable area for the school bus to turn around, you ask whether this statute pertains only to the turn around area or whether it includes the road to the turn around area as well.
It is our opinion that the turn around facility is permissive with the fiscal court. If it opts to construct such a turn around, the turn around must be considered to be an integrated part of the county road system. See KRS 178.010(1)(b). The wording of KRS 178.290 strongly suggests that the turn around is a part and parcel of the county road system, and does not contemplate a private ownership or interval between the county's road holdings. Thus where there is a necessary interval between the present county road right of way and the desirable turn around area, the county would have to acquire the interval by agreement or condemnation. See