Kansas City has some of the most dangerous roads in the nation.
Ninety-seven people died in car crashes in 2024, according to the Kansas City Police Department. Those killed were in one of 85 fatal crashes, but there were also more than 4,600 non-fatal crashes.
Of those killed, 17 were pedestrians and one was on a bicycle. Those numbers are down from 2023 when 102 people, including 20 pedestrians and four bicyclists, were killed. But Kansas City still has the fifth-most fatal car crashes of the 50 biggest cities in the U.S.
For the past few years, Kansas City has used the Vision Zero program to make roads safer for all users, not just drivers. But advocates say the city needs more funding to make the city’s 6,000 road miles better.
“I think Vision Zero is playing a tangible role in moving things in the right direction when it comes to traffic safety,” says Michael Kelley, policy director with transit advocacy group BikeWalkKC and chair of the Vision Zero task force.
“Is it enough? No, it's not. The worst part of my job is having to console the families of people who are harmed by traffic violence.”
Across the city, Public Works has added things like speed humps, flashing crosswalks and other traffic-calming measures. It’s also been implementing “road diets,” which reduce the number of driving lanes in favor of bike lanes, widened sidewalks and medians that make drivers slow to a safer speed.
Progress in 2024
The city has completed nearly 250 projects this year alone, and about 400 total since it started implementing Vision Zero after City Council passed it in 2020.
Many of those were small, neighborhood projects like adding flashing stop signs and speed humps.
Kansas City Chief Mobility Officer Bailey Waters says the city can add neighborhood improvements relatively quickly and easily, based on their studies of dangerous roads and requests from community members.
Waters says the city will continue to fill speed hump requests in 2025, but will also try new ways to make side streets safer.
“For every speed hump we've installed, we get another request — if not two,” Waters said. “But some other things that we're trying out, and maybe trying to expand where we're installing them, are raised crosswalks or tabletop intersections.”
The number of overall traffic fatalities since 2020 has stayed relatively flat, but the city is seeing positive changes from Vision Zero. A study of the first seven intersections Kansas City used Vision Zero methods on showed crashes are down 95% from 2022.
The city did bigger projects in 2024 as well. It added bump-outs in Westport and the Crossroads that create a buffer around curbs, and put protected mobility lanes and sidewalks along long stretches of road.
One of its biggest projects was a redesign of Emanuel Cleaver II Boulevard, one of the city’s most dangerous streets, from Oak Street to Troost Avenue.
The city reduced the number of lanes on the busy road from four to two in most places. It also added protected bike lanes and crosswalks. City Manager Brian Platt called the project a new “gold standard” for how Kansas City implements Vision Zero.
The community responded well to the change. According to a study by BikeWalkKC, bicyclist and pedestrian traffic more than doubled after the road diet, and 60% of those biking said they would otherwise be driving without the improvements.
Platt said the updates make roads safer for all users, including drivers. The changes make it more difficult to drive fast, and they reduce crashes overall.
“It's not an either-or of trying to make our roads more geared towards some other type of user, like a bicycle versus the car,” Platt said. “It's allowing safe passage for people who are not in cars, and it's also making those streets safer for everybody, even people in cars.”
Access for all on Kansas City’s roads
When Platt first became city manager in 2020, a youth disability rights group organized a ride for him around City Hall using a wheelchair, to see what it was like. He realized the roads were inaccessible for people with disabilities.
“It is terrifying sometimes to be in a wheelchair at that level, trying to navigate some of the infrastructure that we've got in Kansas City,” Platt said. “We've got to think about how somebody in a wheelchair could access any of these places or could move around town if they're not in a car.”
Disability access has also improved since the city began implementing Vision Zero in 2022. Those in wheelchairs and motorized scooters can use bike lanes like the Gillham Cycle Track, which gives them more time and space to move around.
Halley Korff, the blind and low-vision coordinator for disability advocacy group The Whole Person, said things like truncated domes — the bumpy, colored pads at the end of a sidewalk that alert people to the curb — sidewalk repairs and more visible sidewalks are huge improvements for those with disabilities.
Korff, who is low-vision herself, has worked with the city on truncated domes to make sure they’re usable. Overall, she says every Vision Zero project can make transportation easier for people with disabilities.
“I want to go to my doctor's appointment on time,” Korff said. “But sometimes I'm late because there's just unforeseen situations that I can't control with navigating around.”
Kathy Kay, CEO at The Whole Person, says the improvements help people with disabilities participate in the community in ways they weren’t able to before. She says being able to access your community safely is a human right.
“What we are wanting for the disability community also makes it safer for people that don't even experience disability,” Kay said. “You don't have to experience a disability to be able to benefit from this. It's better for everybody if people are having to go slower.”
Looking ahead
The city completed more Vision Zero projects in 2024 than the other years combined, and plans to continue that pace. Bigger changes, like road diets, take longer because the city spends more time gathering community feedback.
Sometimes, people don’t want their road changed at all. But Waters said after a couple of years, Vision Zero have become more popular.
The city receives hundreds of requests through email and 311 to change the roads, which has made it easier to educate residents on the need for change and come to a solution together.
“The status quo isn’t an option if we know the road is dangerous,” Waters said. “So maybe I'm proposing a solution that the public doesn't want. They can come up with a different solution and we can look into that.”
Missouri typically releases a Vulnerable Road User Safety Assessment every five years, which identifies high-risk areas for road users who aren’t in a car. Kansas City has consistently been home to some of the most dangerous roads in the state.
Kelley says the city needs to dedicate more funding for Vision Zero. Many of the dangerous roads and intersections in Kansas City are maintained by the Missouri Department of Transportation, so he wants the state to step up efforts to make its roads safer.
“When the data from the city and the state are basically saying the same thing, we need the state D.O.T. to work with us more,” Kelley said. “They need to actively work with us to come up with solutions that cater to those needs, rather than maintaining the status quo.”
Platt said Public Works is doing as many projects as it can with its current budget.
Any increases are up to the city council, but Platt feels confident they see the benefit of expanding the effort.
“We had $0 for Vision Zero in 2021,” Platt said. “Last year, we had $4 million. We're hopefully going to do another significant increase this year again. That's how I think you can track the progress, by how much more money we're investing in this.”
