Drayage Brokersin Louisville, KY

Gas prices aren't expected to move down for a while due to a number of factors.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Every summer the price of gas increases, typically due to people traveling for summer vacations, but right now a number of factors are leading to an unusual increase in the price you see at the pump.

As of Aug. 15, the average price of gas in Louisville is $3.91. That's up nearly 35 cents from last month's average, according to GasBuddy.

"There's a lot of abnormalities happening right now," said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy.

Here's what is contributing to increased gas prices in our region and when we can expect prices to go back down.

In June, Saudi Arabia was charging roughly $65-$66 a barrel for crude oil, De Haan said.

"The Saudis were a little bit unhappy because their budget requires oil to be over $80 a barrel and to make ends meet, so to speak," he said.

In July, Saudi Arabia cut oil production and extended that cut into August, and now September.

"The global market needs more oil, and the Saudis, and also the Russians now, are providing less," De Haan said. "That is what's fueling oil prices higher."

VIDEO BELOW: Louisville wasn't happy with paying $2 for gas in 2002: The Vault revisits.

Refinery issues across the United States have also contributed to the problem. Texas and Louisiana are home to over half of the nation's refining capacity, which is already a very delicate process.

That process has been hindered due to the recent extreme heat in the South.

"Because refineries are outside, exposed to the elements, heat can have a lot of issues," De Haan said. "Refineries operate at hundreds of degrees of temperatures, and if they can't adequately cool their units, that becomes a problem."

He added that the extra heat can cause oil inside the refineries to expand.

"When you process oil that's hot, you're gonna have less capacity, essentially, to produce the same amount of volume," De Haan said. "These all can impair a refinery's ability to produce as much gasoline as it needs to."

Along with issues in the South, a refinery in northwest Indiana began maintenance on its system three weeks earlier than expected. De Haan said that process could take an average of four to six weeks to complete.

Unfortunately, De Haan doesn't expect prices to go back down in the coming days or weeks.

"We do tend to see some relief starting in the fall, especially when we switch back to cheaper winter gasoline -- that happens in mid-September," he said. "So you know, if there's a door or a window of opportunity here to see gas prices falling, I would say it's probably between mid and late September and late November."

Despite this, he said a number of factors could offset any relief including the continued high cost of oil and even severe weather, like hurricanes.

"We don't know what hurricane season is going to hold, so if there was a major hurricane, that could cause prices to go up even more dramatically," De Haan said.

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Sunrise on the first day of school at the Jefferson County Public Schools Detrick Bus Compound at 3686 Parthenia Ave., Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2023, in Louisville, Ky. Kentucky’s largest school system cancelled the second and third day of classes after a disastrous overhaul of the transportation system that left some children on buses until just before 10 p.m. on opening day. (Jeff Faughender/Courier Journal via AP)

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky’s largest school system cancelled the second and third day of classes after a disastrous overhaul of the transportation system that left some children on buses until just before 10 p.m. on opening day.

Jefferson County Public Schools Superintendent Marty Pollio called it a “transportation disaster” in a video posted on social media Thursday morning. Pollio apologized to the district’s 96,000 students along with their families, the bus drivers, and the school officials who had to stay with students for hours as they waited on buses to arrive Wednesday.

He called the decision to close schools on Thursday and Friday the most difficult of his career but said it was necessary. District officials will spend the four days before Monday reviewing the routes and having drivers practice them, he said. The district that encompasses Louisville has 65,000 bus riders, according to its website.

The disaster came after major changes to school bus routes and school start times this year meant to alleviate a bus driver shortage, the Courier Journal reported. The district spent $199,000 to hire the AlphaRoute engineering firm to create a plan that would cut the number of bus routes and stops.

In pushing for the changes, Pollio said the district simply could not keep up with its current routes because of the driver shortage. Even after increasing pay and cutting routes, the district did not have enough drivers, and students continued to get to school late and leave school late all year long, he said.

The district opened an online comment form for the new bus routes on July 24 and received thousands of complaints from parents concerned that their children were having to walk too far to catch the bus or that bus stops were at at busy, unsafe intersections. District spokesperson Mark Hebert told the paper last week that they were continuing to review the parent requests for changes.

Latasha Gomis told the paper last week that the bus for her two elementary school children was scheduled to pick them up at 6 a.m. for a 7:40 a.m. school start. The bus stop is almost a half-mile from their home and there are no sidewalks.

Gomis called the district’s transportation department but was told nothing could be changed, she said. Kentucky law allows bus stops for elementary students to be up to a half-mile away while middle and high school students may walk up to one mile.

Some parents in Louisville, Kentucky waited hours for children to arrive home on the bus during the first week of school. Classes were canceled and the superintendent says changes are coming before kids get back on the bus. (Aug. 11)

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — An overly-ambitious redesign of bus routes for Louisville’s school district turned into a logistical meltdown on the first day of classes, forcing schools to close as administrators said Friday that students might stay home for part of next week until the mess is untangled.

Parents were fuming and some state politicians pressed for changes in the sprawling urban district after some of the 96,000 students didn’t get picked up on Wednesday for school in the morning or came home hours late — with some arriving after dark.

“They had all summer to get this figured out and they couldn’t figure it out,” said Berkley Collins, a mother of two students in Jefferson County Public Schools.

Another appalled parent, Beau Kilpatrick, said one of his young daughters was covered in urine when she finally arrived home at 9:15 p.m. He called it a “complete failure” by the district.

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“They were hungry,” he said of his two elementary-age kids. “They were thirsty. They couldn’t use the bathroom. They were scared because they just wanted to get home.”

On a day that started with so much excitement for the start of a new school year, his children arrived home heartbroken, Kilpatrick said. He was heartbroken, too.

After just one disastrous day, Kentucky’s largest district is reexamining the bus routing system designed by AlphaRoute, a Massachusetts-based consulting company that uses computer algorithms to map out courses and stops.

It could take until the middle of next week to resolve the problems enough to resume classes, Superintendent Marty Pollio said Friday, promising to give parents plenty of notice before Monday.

“I said it from the very beginning, I take responsibility for it myself,” Pollio said at a news conference, repeating his earlier apology to families, bus drivers and school staff.

He said the district should have anticipated that the new plan didn’t leave enough time for busses to get from stop to stop, especially on the first day of school when delays are bound to happen.

The overhaul was intended to solve a basic math problem for the district: Last school year, it didn’t have enough drivers to cover all the routes. As a result, thousands of kids missed considerable amounts of instructional time as some drivers made double and triple runs.

The redesigned plan shrunk the number of bus routes in response to that driver shortage.

Pollio said the district will have to stick with the new plan, which he admitted “isn’t perfect.”

“But it’s going to be much more efficient, and our communication will be much better with families and schools,” he said. “We want to make sure we get that right before we put the kids back on a school bus again.”

The district has 65,000 bus riders, according to its website.

In assessing fault for the opening day fiasco, the superintendent said he’s “not going to put it on the company,” referring to AlphaRoute, adding that it was more a problem with implementation.

Pollio also emphasized that he wasn’t blaming bus drivers, and district officials have acknowledged the system faced a “big learning curve” in carrying out the new plan. Leading up to the start of the school year, bus drivers had several days to practice their routes, and they continued making practice runs Thursday and Friday.

AlphaRoute said in a statement that the “full range of root causes” for the problems weren’t yet clear.

“We recognize that the situation was extremely regrettable and likely caused by the significant changes to bus routing,” the company said. “Combined with their new school assignment model, this is a substantial amount of change.”

Tiesha Calbert experienced the problems both as a parent and as the director of a child care center.

She says the district moved a school bus stop that was right in front of the center. Now there are multiple stops between 1 block and 2 1/2 blocks away. A special needs child waited over 3 hours for a bus that never came, she said.

Calbert said she’s required by the state to sign the kids out, but she doesn’t have enough people to follow them to their bus stops and wait with them.

“I have to figure out what we’re going to do,” she said. “I’m not going to let these kids go back out and just be wandering around for hours.”

A group of state lawmakers representing Jefferson County districts called Wednesday’s chaos “the last straw,” saying the debacle “must be the catalyst for change” in the school system.

The lawmakers signaled they will push for legislation ensuring that students have the right to attend their neighborhood schools. They called for a commission to evaluate splitting up the school system, contending that the district currently is “too big to properly manage.” They also called for changes to the local school board.

Many other districts across the country are experiencing similar bus driver shortages.

A survey of school system leaders taken between October and December 2022 found staffing shortages were not as severe compared to the fall of 2021, but many reported trouble finding enough substitute teachers, special education teachers and bus drivers. In the American School District Panel Survey, 45% of district leaders reported a “considerable shortage” of bus drivers.

Columbus City Schools in Ohio experienced its own upheaval in 2022 that led to mid-school year changes in its transportation plan, which it blamed on its own driver shortage as well as issues with a new software system. The district had a contract with AlphaRoute for software, the Columbus Dispatch reported.

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Loller reported from Nashville, Tennessee.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. —

Among those making up the packed crowd at Tuesday night's Jefferson County Public Schools board meeting were angry parents who had no idea where their children were, as their kids rode JCPS buses for hours last week.

At the beginning of the meeting, JCPS superintendent Marty Pollio once again apologized to every family in the district for last week's first day of school busing debacle.

Due to routing issues, some JCPS students weren't dropped off until after 9 p.m.

Parents have mixed feelings about JCPS 'staggered reopening plan'

Pollio claims short-term adjustments have been made to keep kids safe and get them home at a decent time.

But some parents say they aren't confident JCPS has its transportation issues figured out.

At the standing-room-only meeting, even a student stood up to chastise the school board and superintendent for their part in the bus routing disaster.

Bailey Kaiser is a sophomore at Ballard High School.

She let the JCPS school board know they've got to do better.

"As all of you know, the last student got home on the first day at nearly 10 o'clock. As a student myself, I can say this is absolutely unacceptable. Every single JCPS family deserves to have their child home before they eat dinner," said Kaiser.

JCPS using 'staggered reopening plan,' announces short-term solutions to bus issues

Among the students dropped off by a JCPS bus after dinner was Elizabeth Bramel's son.

He's starting the second grade.

Bramel attended the meeting to let the board know about the anxiety she had to deal with on the first day of school when she had no idea where her son was or if he was safe.

"He didn't get home until after 7 o'clock. It was horrible because I had no clue where he was. I could not get through to the school board or the bus compound in my area to get a hold of him. He compounds from downtown. It was a disaster. I was full-blown panic mode. That's the biggest thing. They need to fix this," said Bramel.

It wasn't just young kids who were affected by the JCPS busing debacle.

Amy Kiefer is the mother of a JCPS senior.

Kiefer says because his bus never showed up, he couldn't get to school on the first day.

Is state law actually getting in the way of JCPS using GPS on its buses?

"I waited with him. I was going in a half hour late. We waited 45 minutes for his bus. It didn't show up. I told him give it another 25. I went on to work. I get downtown. He calls me. No bus," said Kiefer.

During the board meeting, Pollio described changes made to make sure buses run on time when school re-opens later this week.

Some parents, like Ladell Miranda, say they'll wait and see.

"If this isn't fixed or if nothing is figured out officially, even if with the extra vans and buses, there's going to be a mess. It's going to be the same mess, and they're going to be starting over again at square one when it first happened," said Miranda.

Other parents WLKY News spoke to agree with the superintendent and school board on one issue.

That's the need to increase bus driver pay to attract more drivers, which all sides agree would go a long way to solving the JCPS transportation crisis.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- More than 26 restaurants will come together next week to support a good cause during A Taste of Southern Indiana.

The event benefits RSVP Hope Southern Indiana. RSVP stands for the Retired Senior Volunteer Program, and it's geared toward individuals 55 and over. The nonprofit has 700 volunteers in five counties working in soup kitchens, libraries and schools, with groups like Flower Power that put together baskets of flowers for hospice patients. Volunteers also help seniors with small home repairs and transportation to medical appointments.

A Taste of Southern Indiana happens Aug. 22, from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at Eastside Christian Church at 2319 Veterans Parkway in Jeffersonville. That's where the public is invited to enjoy an evening of tastes from southern Indiana's finest eateries like Boombozz Pizza. Kyle Ferguson from Boombozz brought us a sample of an award-winning pizza, as he joined Leann Lindley from RSVP on WDRB Mornings Wednesday for a preview of what to expect.

Over two dozen restaurants and businesses will be featured, including: Chuy's, Sam's Food & Spirits, Sweets by Morgan, The Fireside Bar & Grill, Parlour, Stumler's Catering, Fresco Tea Bar, Heine Brothers Coffee, Poppin Flavors Gourmet Popcorn, Alexander & Ivy Rose Catering & Events, 8th Street Pizza, 1816 Modern Kitchen, Rita's Taco Shop, Panera, Toasted Pineapple Snack Shack, Q Pine BBQ, Trilogy, FaiDodos, Baby Mae's, K of C Jeffersonville, Mark's Feed Store, Tumbleweed, and All About Taste.

Lindley said the event is RSVP's annual fundraiser. "So we go out and ask restaurants to be a part of that. So once we get that established people buy tickets to come and have tastes and samples of the different restaurants. So you might have pizza. Or you might have tacos. Or desserts. So it's a nice array of different things."

People are invited to enjoy the food while taking part in a silent auction.

"In addition to that, the Jamey Abersold Quartet will be playing throughout the night," Lindley said.

Tickets are $30 each, "or you can buy five and get one free." You can purchase them online here: www.hopesi.org or by calling 812-948-1815.

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