You’re haunted by the sounds of squealing tires and crumpling metal interrupting your breakfast or waking you up in the night. Maybe you’re convinced a stop sign or a speed bump could make things safer.
Brace for a fight with City Hall and the need to think like a traffic engineer. But it is possible to change things.
Kansas City has a variety of modifications that the city can make to its most dangerous roads. In more severe cases on bigger roads, the city might consider removing car lanes to slow down drivers.
But the process of convincing the city that a change is necessary can be long and arduous.
First, call 311 or get on the MyKCMO app (or for iPhone) and submit a request. Don’t skip that step. If you’re overwhelmed by the process, you can reach out to the city manager’s office or your City Council member for help.
Traffic engineers — and in some cases, the Kansas City Fire Department — have discretion over what changes will be made to the city’s roads. But the Kansas City Council can also vote to overrule their decision.
Here are the requirements for a handful of street safety measures and your best shot at remaking your street or intersection.
Stop signs
Two-way stop signs are relatively simple if there is a confusing intersection in your neighborhood without any clear marking for who has the right of way.
A four-way stop sign is a bigger deal because it’s more disruptive to the flow of traffic. It almost always requires some form of traffic study. Stop signs are particularly helpful in low-visibility intersections — where trees or a curve in the road block your view of oncoming traffic.
The city is more likely to install a stop sign if there’s a history of car crashes at that intersection.
However, Kansas City’s traffic planners do not use stop signs to slow drivers down. If a street has a speeding problem, it’s more effective to install speed humps, curb bump-outs (they extend sidewalks or curbs into the roadway) or traffic circles.
More information about stop signs can be found on Page 6 of the Traffic Engineering and Operations Manual.
Crosswalk
Kansas City conducts an engineering study for nearly any crosswalk that’s not at an intersection. It’s called a “midblock crosswalk.”
Midblock crosswalks can only be installed where the speed limit is lower than 45 mph.
A crosswalk request usually only gets an OK when at least 10 pedestrians cross the street per hour for five consecutive hours on weekdays.
Bobby Evans, a transportation planner at the Mid-America Regional Council, wants that requirement to be reconsidered in an upcoming update to the guidelines.
“People aren’t going to (cross the street) unless they feel safe,” he said. “We didn’t build a bridge across the Missouri River because people were swimming it.”
The city might be more likely to build a crosswalk if pedestrians have been hit or killed crossing the street there.
Speed humps
Rounded speed humps — not to be confused with more abrupt speed bumps — are relatively cheap, but the city has some strict restrictions on where they can go.
They can only be installed on residential streets with speed limits of less than 30 mph without a double-yellow line, and the traffic count has to be less than 1,500 vehicles per day. You can find a road’s traffic count on the MODOT website.
Assuming you get the traffic engineers on board, you’ll still need to get 75% of your neighbors on the street to sign a petition. The Kansas City Fire Department has the right to veto any speed hump request.
The city might also conduct a speed study. Speed humps are usually only installed when at least 15% of cars are going more than 7 mph over the speed limit.
More information about speed humps can be found on Page 20 of the Traffic Engineering and Operations Manual.
Sidewalks
Sidewalks are more expensive to build, and the city is less flexible when it comes to requests.
Assistant City Manager Melissa Kozakiewicz said Kansas City is prioritizing sidewalks around schools. So, unless you live near a school, you’re unlikely to be at the top of the list.
Converting one-way streets to two-way streets
It can be difficult to change a one-way street where people often drive the wrong direction.
For the city to consider your request, you have to get 100% of property owners along the street to sign a petition.
At that point, the Public Works Department will conduct an engineering study. Even if every property owner is on board, the city could still turn you down.
More information about one-way streets can be found on Page 13 of the Traffic Engineering and Operations Manual.
Looking to the future
Kansas City is working on modifying its Safe Streets for All guidelines, including the number of lanes a street should have, how wide the sidewalks should be and whether a street needs a bike lane.
Those guidelines could make strategies like a road diet — removing lanes to slow down traffic — a standard for certain roads that don’t have enough traffic to justify their number of lanes.
“The roadways have been designed in a way that you feel very comfortable driving over the speed limit, and you shouldn’t,” said Evans, the MARC planner.
The updated guidelines could also change those requirements for where speed humps or stop signs are allowed.
Evans hopes with the updated guidelines, whenever the city needs to repave streets, replace traffic signals or redesign a road, they will only have safe choices.
The Safe Streets for All guidance is in early stages, and community engagement will begin in 2025.
This story was originally published by The Beacon, a fellow member of the KC Media Collective.
