Learn more about what makes Troost Avenue dangerous and how we can make it safer for everyone.
The recent crash that killed UMKC student Yuxi Wu reinforces that much of Troost Avenue is unsafe for pedestrians and other vulnerable road users. Here’s what we can do to push the city to make that corridor safer:
- Sign the petition being circulated by UMKC students to get a stop light installed at the intersection of 51st and Troost.
- Use this link to email the City Council to ask them to make that intersection, and the rest of Troost Avenue, safer for everyone.
Read on to learn more about what makes Troost unsafe and what can be done to address it.
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What has the city been doing to try to address the issue of traffic violence?
Troost Avenue has historically been considered the racial dividing line in KCMO. In recent years, it has gained additional notoriety as a dangerous corridor from a transportation standpoint.
In May 2020, the KCMO City Council adopted a Vision Zero resolution, declaring traffic violence a public health emergency and setting a goal of eliminating traffic fatalities and serious injuries by the year 2030. As part of that effort, city leaders developed a Vision Zero Action Plan to guide their work to achieve that goal. The Action Plan also contains a High Injury Network; this is where the city took all the crash data over the last seven years and put it on a map of city streets to determine which streets were producing more crashes than the average.
What does this have to do with Troost Avenue?
In short, Troost Avenue has been identified as one of the most dangerous corridors for traffic violence in the entire city. Between 2015 and 2019 alone, Troost Avenue (specifically from I-670 to Bannister Road) produced 16 fatalities and 65 serious injuries. The only corridor that has produced more fatalities during that time is Highway 71/Bruce R. Watkins Drive.
What makes Troost Avenue, and this intersection in particular, so dangerous?
There are a number of elements that come together at this particular intersection that make it dangerous for pedestrians, cyclists, transit users, people with disabilities, and even drivers. These include:
- Proximity to key destinations: 51st and Troost is an intersection that either directly connects or is in close proximity to several places people want to go. Besides UMKC, there’s also Rockhurst University. Go Chicken Go is a popular restaurant that people love to frequent by car or other means. There’s also a bus stop for the Troost MAX route that people love to take. It’s also next to the Troostwood neighborhood and the residents who call this area home. All of these places mean that there are going to be more people navigating this space by car, but also by some combination of walking, transit, and biking.
- Wide road configuration: Additionally, the current configuration of Troost itself makes the road dangerous for users. In its current form, Troost has five lanes: two travel lanes on each side and a turning lane in the middle. According to the Vision Zero Action Plan, roads configured with this many lanes are significantly more likely to produce crashes than 2 or 3 lane roads. There’s much less car traffic on Troost than engineers anticipated. The remaining drivers on Troost have more space to speed and drive recklessly as a result.
- Unmarked crossing: The other glaring problem at this intersection is that it is unmarked. While there is a pedestrian crossing sign for approaching drivers, only one crossing is actually marked. Without markings or a stoplight, pedestrians and other users are required to take a chance when trying to cross the street.
When all of these elements are put together, it creates the circumstances where a crash is not only likely, but inevitable.
How can we make Troost Avenue safer for everyone?
It’s important to understand that crashes like the one that killed Yuxi Wu are the result of policy choices that make Troost Avenue and other streets in our city unsafe. As tragic as that is, it also means we can choose to build something better. The only way we can do that, however, is by speaking up and demanding that our leaders build something better. There’s two ways we can begin to do that:
- Sign the petition being circulated by a UMKC student to get a stoplight installed at 51st and Troost. Adding your name can show that there are real numbers of people who want something to be done.
- Use this link to email the City Council to ask them to make that intersection, and the rest of Troost, safer for everyone. Far too often, the City Council hears little from everyday folks about the need for safer streets. Taking time to send an email can make a difference because it shows our elected officials that this is a priority that we want them to address.
When it comes to advocating for safer streets, we often say that “Advocacy is a contact sport.” That means that we can make our community safer for ourselves and others, but only if we’re willing to speak up for the changes that we seek. We owe it to people like Yuxi Wu and countless others to say that we need safe streets for everyone now.