Safer walkways, cleaner streets: Kansas City plans to put over $2M into Southwest Boulevard

An 18-wheeler whizzed by the intersection of Southwest Boulevard, Avenida Cesar E. Chavez and West Pennsylvania Avenue with a loud horn on a sunny fall afternoon, where Kansas City’s 4th District-at-Large councilmember Crispin Rea stood alongside city officials and Westside business owners, joking about the horn being a sign that fast-paced traffic is a common concern on the busy street.

The intersection, surrounded by longstanding local businesses, is part of a heavily-trafficked neighborhood that keeps pedestrians on their toes while crossing streets and navigating parking.

The city hopes to erase these problems with a $2.1 million investment that will be used to improve traffic, parking and public safety on Southwest Boulevard, Kansas City officials announced at a Monday afternoon news conference. Rea and 4th district Councilmember Eric Bunch sponsored the resolution, which calls for the largely Hispanic area’s first public funding in decades, Rea said.

The plan is a part of the city’s Vision Zero initiative to make roads safer and end traffic fatalities and serious injuries by 2030. It includes turning the Southwest Boulevard corridor into a two-lane road with more parking, safer crosswalks and vegetation. The two-lane road will feature a shared-use path with a median.

“It will be easier for pedestrians to walk, better for businesses to attract patrons and safer for neighborhood residents,” Rea said during the news conference announcing the change.

Rea, who grew up in Kansas City, has distinct memories of frequenting Southwest Boulevard as a child. The Mexican-American council member spent a lot of time with family and friends on the Westside, but also lost an uncle in 2016 in a car accident on Southwest Boulevard. He understands what a venture like this means for the neighborhood.

“When you talk about a project like this, yeah, it’s infrastructure, yeah, it’s funding, yeah, it’s budgeting, but it’s an intimate issue for folks,” Rea said.

Rea and Bunch both said they’ve made it a priority to invest on the Westside, in order to help businesses like the nearby Café Ollama increase their customer base and allow for visitors to walk the area and feel safe.

Café Ollama owner Lesly Reyes, whose building is about ten feet from where the announcement was held, agreed the neighborhood could use the upgrades, and feels the residents and business owners were heard when plans were being discussed.

“City sweeping, city cleaning, cleaning out the trash cans under the bridge, that never really gets over here,” Reyes said. “This is the first time, at least that I have seen in my experience, that our councilmen are actually reaching out to businesses, actually reaching out to the community,” she said.

The city’s public outreach on the issues began last October with seven meetings, online surveys, tours and communicating in English and Spanish.

Council members are making sure they put an emphasis on what they call a neglected community by collaborating with business owners and residents to ensure a popular section of the city is safe and ready for incoming traffic by the time the FIFA World Cup comes to town in 2026, they said.

‘Make it like the Plaza’

A study that analyzed transportation, public spaces and environmental factors was one of the factors that led to the city’s investment.

According to the study, the corridor from Southwest Boulevard and Broadway Boulevard to Southwest and West 31st Street has produced six serious injury crashes, 10 pedestrian and bike crashes, and 275 intersection crashes in the last four years.

High speeds, lack of safe bike and pedestrian accommodations and limited parking near restaurants are some of the issues that plague the area. Rea also identified street racing and sideshows as an ongoing issue that the city addressed with street grooves as a temporary fix.

Residents and business owners agree these have all been challenges for the area.

Matt Jasinski, a five-year Westside resident, said the walkways in the area are “awkward,” as some crosswalks don’t have lights to tell pedestrians when to walk. Jasinski told The Star he doesn’t check for traffic lights anymore when crossing streets.

“It’s a lot,” Jasinski said as he referenced a crosswalk without a light at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Avenida Cesar E. Chavez. “I don’t have a problem. If it’s a 60-year-old granny, that’s a little bit too far of a stretch.”

Israel Mendez, owner of restaurant El Pueblito at 810 SW Blvd., has had troubles with parking before, but is optimistic about the changes since city investment is involved.

“We need to slow this down and make it like the Plaza,” Mendez said. “I think it’d be more beautiful, because it’s like we got the food, we got the places, and those being mom and pop shops, just surviving on their own. But we never really had any city dollars to back us up until now, which is an amazing blessing.”

‘We deserve a nice, safe neighborhood’

Along with slowing traffic and adding parking and crosswalks, the city also plans to add lighting under the I-35 bridge, public art and banners to prominently introduce patrons to the area.

The plans will begin with the paving of Southwest Boulevard from Broadway Boulevard to West 25th Street, which is expected to begin sometime next year, Bunch said.

$1.5 million is estimated to be needed to build the green infrastructure, medians and other road amenities. Signage and landscaping at Broadway is estimated to cost $500k, lighting and banners are estimated at near $600k, along with $900k for traffic lights and almost $2 million to replace sidewalks.

Bunch said more funding is needed, but changes will be seen next year and should be done ahead of the World Cup.

“One thing that stood out that everyone agreed on is that Southwest Boulevard deserves better,” Bunch said. “It deserves the investment and the interest of the city.”

It’s an assessment local residents fully support, after years of going it on their own.

Mendez and Reyes are both products of family businesses passed down through the generations. Mendez has owned El Pueblito since 1994, and Reyes’ mother has owned Café Ollama’s building for 15 years.

Rea commended the local businesses for prospering for years without city investment, but the recognition begs an obvious question: Why hasn’t the city invested into Southwest Boulevard in recent years?

Rea took a long pause when asked the question. For him, it’s about the priorities of previous city councils.

“There has been a recent push to make our streets safer, with infrastructure and planning and things that we are learning that other cities are doing,” he said. “It’s a matter of making it a priority.”

“I think Kansas Citians, we have a hard time with change,” Bunch said, when asked the same question.

“We’ve just always treated streets like Southwest Boulevard as highways to get people out of the city as fast as possible. And when we do that, that’s what you get. Until we start seeing the changes in real time and experiencing them and not getting caught up in the naysaying that sometimes comes with these and just embrace it, that’s when you start to see, I think, a real interest in true community change,” Bunch said.

Now, their goal is to make one of the city’s most culturally diverse areas a hotspot for investment and tourism ahead of one of the most culturally diverse sporting events in the world.

“I’m more happy to actually just beautify the neighborhood,” Reyes said. “It goes deeper than just my coffee shop. It goes into the community that I’m serving, which is this neighborhood and the Latino people. Now we deserve a nice, safe neighborhood.”