The sun is barely over the horizon when crossing guards near Ingels Elementary School start their shift, waiting to guide students across the busy street in south Kansas City.
At Food Lane and Longview Road, students pass a telephone pole with a small wooden cross adorned with flowers and a tiara. A bicycle tied to another pole has a front plate memorializing 9-year-old Hazen Workman-Duffy, who was fatally struck by a car while on her way to school a year ago.
Kansas City police said she was riding her bicycle in a marked crosswalk and had a green signal.
Hazen enjoyed biking, according to her obituary, along with “swimming, coloring, crocheting, reading and spending time with her family and friends.” Her family said she was especially known for her “best hugs” that she gave to anyone she could and a smile that “could light up a room.”
Hazen was one of 68 people killed in Kansas City traffic crashes last year, according to the police department's annual report, but it was her death that spurred change. Mayor Quinton Lucas introduced an ordinance to ban right turns on red in school zones during school hours.
“The first thing that we thought in Kansas City was that we'd never have to accept a pedestrian death, particularly a juvenile pedestrian death,” Lucas said.
The new traffic law is one of several changes made by city leaders, local organizations and even parents to keep kids safer on Kansas City streets and ensure deaths like Hazen’s don’t happen again.
The mayor’s ordinance required signs forbidding right turns on red to be placed at all affected intersections within a year. A total of 146 signs have been installed around 41 school zones since then, according to a city spokesperson.
Rayan Makarem, policy director at BikeWalkKC, said people have been advocating for more traffic safety for kids biking or walking to school for years. But he said Hazen’s death gave them momentum to get the new traffic rules passed.
“It was not the beginning. It won't be the end. It's just one step in the right direction,” Makarem said. “We have to change the way we operate our vehicles in our city.”
Makarem said that includes better education for drivers and more awareness of pedestrians. At the same time, he said the city needs to improve existing infrastructure to eliminate hazardous conditions that may be unsafe.
Getting traffic deaths down to zero
Some of that work is being done through Vision Zero, the city’s plan to eliminate traffic fatalities by 2030 by redesigning roads, creating “road diets” and adding safety infrastructure like speed humps, flashing crosswalks and new stoplights.
But Makarem said Vision Zero funding varies each year, limiting how many traffic safety projects it takes on.
Traffic deaths were down by 30% in 2025. More pedestrians and bicyclists were killed in those crashes than have been in any year since 2020.
Approximately 54 people have been killed in traffic crashes this year, according to police department data.
Just last week, the city announced a new initiative called SafeAcross KC to install bright yellow pedestrian-shaped sculptures near 10 crosswalks. City staff will also measure how many drivers actually yield to pedestrians at crosswalks to identify areas that need investment and evaluate existing infrastructure.
The Hickman Mills School District hired a company to staff crossing guards this school year, including at the intersection where Hazen was killed.
A district spokesperson said the decision was not made directly because of Hazen’s death; the top reason was changing boundaries in the school district and an increasing number of students walking to class. But Ingels Elementary, where she attended, has seen the biggest increase.
The district said it will continue to review safety needs, including looking at spots where crossing guards can provide another layer of protection. Each school has discussed, or plans to discuss, walking and biking safety with students.
Hazen’s mother, Diana Shields, told KCUR that the right turn on red ban and new crossing guards near Ingels Elementary are positive changes. But there is another traffic change she would like to see made.
She said Hazen was hit by a vehicle making a left turn on a flashing yellow light, and her daughter had a green sign to use the crosswalk. She said she thinks the flashing yellow light should be red when people use the crosswalk, especially during school times.
Lucas said he believes Kansas City is safer for young people and for walking in particular. He said having more tools to slow people down and enforce traffic safety is a good thing, including new speed limits and age restrictions for e-bikes and scooters.
Still, he said there are lingering issues with e-bikes, and many drivers go too quickly down streets like Troost Avenue.
“So we're not perfect at all,” Lucas said. “This is a continuing effort, and we'll keep pushing it.”
Safety while walking or biking school
Despite the efforts, some families in Kansas City say they feel unsafe allowing their children to walk or bike to school.
Patrick Kastor lives in the Ivanhoe neighborhood with his 7- and 12-year-old sons. His oldest learned how to ride a two-wheel bike a couple of years ago, and the younger one was quick to follow.
Kastor said he disapproved of them biking to school, in part because of tough hills on the way home.
But another big reason is their school starts and lets out around peak traffic times that Kastor describes as an “economic pressure cooker” of drivers rushing to work.
“It just creates a bad situation where people are not necessarily paying full attention to what's going on around them,” Kastor said. “And especially something like a kid on a bike, which is moving and (a) small target, would be particularly susceptible to getting hit.”
Kastor said more crossing guards stationed at busy intersections would help him feel safer allowing his kids to bike to school. He’d also like to see a path or small street designated for walking and biking where cars aren’t allowed.
Shifting the culture around cars
Lucas said pedestrian infrastructure is lacking in “gigantic swaths” of the city, and how safe families feel allowing their kids to walk or bike to school depends on where they live. He said the city is steadily working to improve that, but neighborhoods need to want it, too.
In 2023, Kansas City removed a bike lane on one side of Truman Road after opposition from a group of business owners. But Emanuel Cleaver II Boulevard, one of Kansas City’s deadliest streets, was redesigned in 2024 as a result of community members advocating for it.
Lucas said there also needs to be a cultural shift.
“We need to come to terms with being a car-based city, maybe, but also one where it's pretty cool to be able to walk around safely,” Lucas said.
Even when traffic safety infrastructure and policies are in place, another hurdle is getting people to know — and comply. That includes the ban on right turns on red in school zones.
Lucas said the city is making progress on raising awareness of the ban and has already reached out to local school districts and neighborhood associations.
Makarem, of BikeWalkKC, believes there’s been enough time for people to learn about the new traffic law.
“If you have not heard of this at all, but you are driving and you get to a stop at a red light, I would hope that you are driving carefully and seeing and looking around you, and you will see that sign, and you will realize, ‘Oh, yes, this is a school zone, no turn on red,’” Makarem said.
Families still find ways to bike to school
A growing number of families are finding safety in numbers when biking to school.
Ellen Schwartze is affectionately called the “Bike Bus Queen” at BikeWalkKC. She said a “bike bus” functions the same way as a regular school bus with a set route where kids get on at different stops and ride together to class.
Families at Hale Cook Elementary started the Kansas City area’s first bike bus last fall. More schools have since launched their own, including in Shawnee Mission and Kansas City, Kansas.
Schwartze said people may start a bike bus because it looks fun and maintain it because it keeps their kids safe and gives them a sense of autonomy — especially when traffic and street infrastructure falls short.
“There are deaths every year on the Kansas City roads because of the way traffic design happens, so this is a joyful way to counteract some of that infrastructure failing, and people find a lot more once they are doing the bike bus, too,” Schwartze said.
Ashlynn Horras helps lead the north route for the “Midtown Bike Bus” that picks up kids on the way to Foreign Language Academy and Academy Lafayette.
Horras said her second grade daughter’s favorite place to be is “on wheels.” She said she wouldn't send her kid to school alone because of the busy streets needed to cross, but has big hopes for their bike bus.
“If we get a critical mass of parents leading this, then cars are seeing these families biking to school, and they're saying, ‘OK, this is a place where children bike, so I need to slow down, and I need to actually stop at stoplights,’” Horras said.
