The reconstruction of a portion of Wornall Road in Kansas City will begin in one to three years, according to a city project manager.
The lane restructuring would transform the troublesome Wornall Road between Gregory Boulevard and 63rd Street from a four-lane road to a two-lane road with a center turn lane. The corridor has been under construction for years, residents said, and has caused them a fair share of headaches and flat tires.
The project, headed by the Kansas City Public Works Department, is formally known as a road diet, a roadway reconfiguration that can “improve safety, calm traffic, provide better mobility and access for all road users, and enhance overall quality of life,” according to the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration.
It’s part of Vision Zero KC, an initiative seeking to eliminate traffic fatalities and serious injuries in the city by 2030. Kansas City has some of the most dangerous roads in the nation — 97 people were killed in traffic incidents in 2024.
There’s also a national Vision Zero movement, adopted from a Swedish traffic model that integrates human error in infrastructure design, but American cities have implemented those initiatives with varying success.
The lane reconfiguration on Wornall would reduce speed limits and improve safety along the road, city officials said. The city is still gathering community input and will consult city council members about next steps.
Community members have raised two concerns about the lane restructuring: getting stuck behind a bus and experiencing more traffic on Brookside Boulevard, a residential street, said Uday Manepalli, the city’s engineering division head.
“I would like to emphasize we as a city are not coming in and trying to force something,” he added. “We want to work with the community, and we want to address the problem and whatever we (can), we are going to do it.”
The project’s timeline of one to three years depends on feedback provided during the “first round” of a community survey, Manepalli said.
However, the survey’s deadline could be extended, or the city could begin a second phase of seeking community input, said Ryan McMonigle, a public information officer for the city.
Despite the city listing the corridor as a “high-injury network,” Manepalli told KCUR city officials began the Wornall Road initiative because it looked at older traffic data when the area was considered more dangerous.
To determine what roads fall under the high-injury network, the city looks at the entire metro, tracks fatal and major traffic-related injury sites and identifies high-risk intersections.
The Wornall Road corridor actually has a moderate safety risk, but that doesn’t mean it still isn’t dangerous. Within the past decade, there were 91 traffic-related injuries and 300 property damage crashes along the corridor, Manepalli said. In fact, a traffic crash occurred outside a meeting where the city was giving a presentation about the dangers of that stretch of road, he said.
“Unfortunately, the day we were presenting, five minutes before the meeting, there was a crash right outside the hall,” Manepalli said. “It may not look dangerous because someone didn’t die yet, but the data is showing we have some issues.”
More recently, a motorcyclist was left in critical condition after being struck by a car on Aug. 5 at the intersection of Gregory and Wornall.
The city is still seeking comment on the project, and its survey ends Aug. 31.
