Ever since Asia Dunmore’s mom was killed in a hit-and-run accident at 86th Terrace in October, the 35-year-old mother of two has become an advocate for safer streets for pedestrians. 

She said her mother, Michelle Dunmore, took her typical route to the Aldi on Troost Avenue and 65th Street, which meant walking on Troost to a stop near 89th Street, when she was struck by a car. 

“There are no sidewalks on either side of those streets,” Asia Dunmore said. “If there had been a sidewalk there, maybe she would have hit the curb and been able to correct herself. Maybe my mother’s injuries wouldn’t have been fatal.”

Kansas City pedestrians have detailed the low walkability of a city that falls short on crosswalks, sidewalks and other designs to the streetscape that can keep people on foot safe from traffic. 

The Kansas City Council passed the Vision Zero action plan in 2022 with the goal of eliminating traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2030. City leaders pledged to design a road system that prioritizes safety by reducing speeds, investing in safety measures for pedestrians and bikes and focusing transportation spending on high-crash and low-income areas.

For instance, the city has broken ground on intersection improvements at Independence Avenue and Van Brunt Boulevard, including the construction of two concrete islands, removing the left turn lanes on Independence Avenue and realigning the lanes on Van Brunt.

But some residents say much of Kansas City remains unsafe for pedestrians.

“A lot of times, this is presented as a one-off — the person who’s dead is the person who was responsible — when in reality, it is the combination of factors that push a person to try to navigate a street that was not designed for them,” said Michael Kelley, the policy director of BikeWalkKC, a local nonprofit that has been working with Dunmore’s family in their pursuing of improved walkability. “We can’t be surprised when they have to try to run across the street to catch a bus or when they have to walk along a stretch that doesn’t have sidewalks.”

Drivers and pedestrians face dangerous roads

Michelle Dunmore’s death was the third fatal hit-and-run on that stretch of roadway in the past two years. Since her death, there have been more fatal car crashes along Troost Avenue. It’s a part of what the city calls its High Injury Network, where the highest concentrations of collisions resulting in fatal or serious injuries occur, Kelley said.

Between 2010 and 2020, fatal crashes increased in Kansas City by 74%, according to Vision Zero. The number of crashes continued to rise during the pandemic, reaching a peak of 98 deaths, which Kelley said is likely due to an increase in driver speeds at a time when roads were emptier. 

The city has since seen a decline in fatal crashes, with 82 accidents with at least one death each in 2023, according to data from The Kansas City Police Department. 

For pedestrians, the rate of death and serious injury increased by 37% between 2010 and 2020, with nine fatal hit-and-runs in 2020. In 2023, there have been 15 fatal hit-and-runs.

Advocates say that the biggest issue is infrastructure. 

“Not just sidewalks, but safe crosswalks, lighting designated to help pedestrians get across the road safely,” Kelley said.

Representatives at BikeWalkKC also said that the city’s wide streets encourage speeding. 

“It is a huge issue, a huge problem,” said Amy Scrivner, a BikeWalkKC director of development and communications. “So we’re looking at different ways of doing street calming, traffic calming and popup demonstrations to show that small changes made can have a drastic, positive impact on driver behavior.”

BikeWalkKC advocates for traffic calming measures — physical designs put in roads to reduce car speeds and improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists — throughout Kansas City.

Those measures include traffic lights, speed bumps and road diets — or restriping of pavement to reduce the number of travel lanes and narrow the street to leave space for bikes and pedestrians. 

As Dunmore’s family awaits the results of the ongoing investigation into Michelle’s death, they continue to work with advocates to address what they say is an urgent public safety issue. 

“People feel like only a criminal will kill someone with a gun,” Asia Dunmore said, “but everyone can get behind the wheel of a car and accidentally kill someone. We also need to pay attention to what could have prevented that vehicle from striking the pedestrian on the road.”

Advocates say minimizing car crashes and increasing pedestrian safety also present an equity issue because Black Kansas Citians are twice as likely to be killed in a traffic accident as their white counterparts, according to Vision Zero. 

Black residents are 26% of the population of Kansas City, yet they make up 40% of the pedestrian fatalities, said Eric Rogers, executive director of BikeWalkKC.

“If you look at any of the maps of, like, food deserts, or health deserts, it’s the same map if you look at transportation disparities,” he said. “It’s all the same systemic results.”

The price of pedestrian safety 

Change will be expensive.

Residents can recommend streets, roadways and sidewalks for improvements through their City Council district’s Public Improvements Advisory Committee funds, but the money is limited.

In 2023, the committee received 830 applications for $750 million in construction. But the committee could only spend $30 million, or about $5 million per district. 

“There’s a specific need for very small-scale investments,” Kelley said. 

Projects like crosswalks or truncated domes for pedestrians with visual disabilities may be too small to go through the proposal process, but there isn’t dedicated funding to pay for these improvements, he said. 

“So people are in this gray area, where they need the improvements to walkability to make them feel safer,” Kelley said. “But there’s no effective way for them to get it because they’re constantly having to go against bigger projects that are almost guaranteed to get more funding.”

That varies by ZIP code, because money is split between City Council districts. Eric Bunch, who represents the city’s 4th District and introduced the action plan to the council, said his district uses a substantial amount of its PIAC dollars to invest in sidewalks. 

“We’ve set aside about $1 million of $5 million a year on sidewalk improvement,” he said. 

His district’s budget is also used to make other improvements in line with Vision Zero goals, such as sidewalk connectivity, painted crosswalks and curb extensions at major intersections, he said. 

The stretch of 31st Street between Main Street and Troost Avenue — known as a dangerous corridor for cars, cyclists and pedestrians —  was resurfaced in 2022. That converted the street from four lanes to two lanes, with permanent parking along the sidewalk making the streets slightly narrower. 

The City Council can also spend money from the Go KC bond passed in 2017 and allocates $7.5 million in sidewalk improvements every year until 2037. 

“That’s just for repairs for sidewalks,” Kelley said. “It has nothing to do with the installation of new sidewalks.” 

How does Kansas City Council plan to achieve Vision Zero?

The Kansas City Council has already completed 144 Vision Zero projects focused on basic traffic calming that slow vehicles or route them in ways where they’re less likely to endanger pedestrians, Bunch said. 

Earlier this year, the council added $1 million to $500,000 it had already earmarked for further Vision Zero efforts. City leaders are also applying for the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Safe Streets for All program, which would grant the city $30 million to $35 million to prevent roadway deaths. 

While the current Vision Zero project budget is small compared to what it would take to remake the city’s streets, Bunch said the goal of eliminating traffic fatalities and injuries in Kansas City is still possible.  

“What we can control is traffic on city streets,” he said, “so that’s what we’re doing more of and incorporating into more of our operations.”