KC property owners push for urban upgrades as street racing plagues Crossroads District
A couple blocks from his restaurant in the Crossroads, Nicholas Grunauer has seen a rise in motorcycles popping wheelies, ATVs speeding through intersections, and car stunts blocking traffic in the neighborhood.
While he describes the Crossroads Art District as a safe and fun atmosphere, he said an increase in reckless driving has caused headaches for his neighbors, and a sense of chaos in the community.
Over the past year, street racing and sideshows have been persistent in the Crossroads Art District. The activity has seemingly exploded since the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Grunauer, who has served customers in the neighborhood for 15 years.
Several business owners have called police and city officials, saying the dangerous activities have caused a loss of business.
Grunauer, owner of the Austrian-German restaurant, Grünauer, said he has fortunately seen an increase in business in recent years, but still finds the activity to be an eyesore.
“We’ve kind of created this environment that is conducive to this type of behavior,” Gunauer said. “Because, traditionally, our neighborhood was built as an industrial neighborhood with really wide streets, not a lot of focus on pedestrians.”
Grunauer, who is also president of the Crossroads Community Association, said loud noises from cars, unlicensed vehicles and dangerous driving has caused an outpour of concern in the community.
He said that to the casual onlooker, it can appear that disorder is tolerated when sideshows happen.
But it’s more complex than that, Gunauer said.
“We have a great, fun, dynamic neighborhood, and with that comes come some problems, and this is definitely one that we’re trying to address right now,” Gunauer said.
To address that problem, property owners are pushing for several changes, including more funds to pay for improvements to infrastructure and extra security in the Crossroads. The hope is that these urban upgrades, along with better police presence and a planned redesign effort to make a busy nearby street more accessible and safe, could go a long way to hindering sideshow activity, Gunauer said.
Communities affected by street racing
In recent years, large groups of motorcycles and ATVs have been seen speeding through downtown streets. They’ve been known to take over intersections and stop traffic while performing dangerous stunts.
People have been injured and killed when they were hit by vehicles driving recklessly. In 2022, a 19-year-old spectator was hit by a car and killed. The next year, a 20-year-old car enthusiast from Johnson County was killed in a shooting at a sideshow.
Last month, a police officer was injured when an ATV driver ran him over during a traffic stop. The driver has been charged with three felonies in the incident.
An uptick in sideshows and street racing is part of a national surge in the activity, especially in urban areas, according to the Kansas City Police Department.
As of April 30, KCPD has fielded 243 calls for service regarding sideshows so far this year. Those calls were made from several different communities in Kansas City.
According to Kansas City Municipal Court records, 49 people have been cited so far this year for attending a sideshow, and 14 people have been cited for street racing. That’s compared to 54 people cited for attending a sideshow and 39 people cited for street racing all of last year, according to municipal court data.
Officer Alayna Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for KCPD, said while there are hot spots, sideshows tend to move to different locations. The police department is working on enforcement operations where they identify places the sideshows convene and cite both participants and onlookers.
“Officers on patrol will conduct enforcement efforts when illegal street racing/sideshow efforts are observed, as well as maintain a presence in areas where those activities are more likely to occur,” Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez said the department expects to see more sideshows as the weather warms up.
“We ask concerned citizens to not intervene and notify law enforcement immediately,” Gonzalez said. “Sideshows are dangerous and we want to ensure citizens remain safe.”
City ordinances have recently changed to increase fines for street racing and spectating. Police have asked city officials to approve additional cameras, automatic license plate readers, as well as fencing and gates in areas around downtown to further curb street racing, sideshows, and dangerous vehicles exhibiting lawless behavior.
But even with police crackdowns, sideshows and street racing have persisted.
Crispin Rea, Kansas City city councilman representing the 4th District At-Large, said he gets frequent calls and emails from business owners who say they’ve lost business because of sideshows and reckless driving.
“I do think we need more enforcement, and I have asked (Kansas City Police) Chief (Stacey) Graves to increase enforcement in the neighborhoods where this is happening on a predictable and routine basis,” Rea said.
Rea said he realizes police can’t be everywhere at once, and is hopeful a new recruit class of KCPD officers will boost patrol efforts.
In the meantime, Rea is supporting a community improvement district proposal that would allow property owners in the Crossroads to tax themselves for neighborhood improvements.
Property owners have signed onto a proposal for a Community Improvement District, or CID, which would fund renovations to roads and other infrastructure, and pay for extra security in the area. Signatures are being verified by the city, and once that is complete, the measure will appear as an ordinance before the City Council.
While the CID is not solely focused on reducing sideshows, it would fund changes to roads and other infrastructure that would make it harder for people to drive recklessly.
“I have been supportive of their efforts to form that CID and helping to navigate through city hall,” Rea said. “I will sponsor the ordinance to put it before the full council, after everything is verified, to create the CID. I think that’ll be a big step once they can get moving.”
How more taxes in the Crossroads may help
Grunauer said existing city infrastructure and poor pedestrian amenities is a big reason so many sideshows happen in his neighborhood. More funds to change that could help, he said.
“We have this combination of cool things going on, people are here, people want to be seen, and really wide streets where you can go really fast and get the attention you are seeking,” Gunauer said.
Another reason sideshows persist, he said, is because some property owners are passive about securing their parking lots.
“We’re also leaning on property owners that haven’t been particularly helpful in where a lot of these groups tend to meet up,” Grunauer said. “They’re essentially trespassing, but the property owner doesn’t really want to secure their properties.”
The CID would also fund security officers who would patrol the region and take aim at a concurrent problem — property crime.
Auto thefts and business break-ins have consistently been in the headlines over the last year. Business owners seeing motorbikes and ATVs speeding by the day after their business was broken into doesn’t help create a sense of safety, Rea said. It does the opposite.
“I don’t know that the two forms of chaos between the biker kids and the auto thefts are related, but it certainly feels that way for the folks experiencing it,” Rea said. “You know, they see the chaos at the intersection, and then they wake up in the morning and a whole bunch of cars have been broken into… it just contributes to a sense of disorder and lawlessness. We got to get it under control.”
Grunauer said more resources via the CID would help the Community Association and property owners take better control of and be proactive about preventing sideshows, rather than having to rely solely on KCPD.
A new Southwest Boulevard
Business owners in the Crossroads also say the upcoming redesign of a busy area street could make it harder for people to drive ATVs and motorbikes recklessly in their neighborhood. A $2.1 million project is slated to revamp part of Southwest Boulevard, a bustling street lined with restaurants, coffee houses, shops, galleries, breweries and more which bring heavy auto and foot traffic.
While there is not a definitive timeline in place for the project to break ground, city officials expect it to be complete by the time the World Cup comes to Kansas City in June 2026.
Matt Hasek with Urban Lab KC helped make a digital redesign of the road. He used to work in the Crossroads and was familiar with how hard it is for pedestrians to cross the street.
“Vehicles regularly speed down, and not just the ATVs and dirt bikers that ride on it, but also vehicles in general,” Hasek said.
“We decided to put together a whole digital model of the corridor and basically reimagine it so that it’s more equitable for different road users,” Hasek said. “So it’s better for pedestrians, better for cyclists, and even better for drivers in some instances.”
Improvements on Southwest Boulevard will start from Broadway and Southwest Boulevard up to 25th Street. It will add traffic calming, new landscaping, sidewalk repairs, narrowing the street and adding pedestrian crossings.
That work is being done just southwest of the Crossroads, but part of that project includes additional funding for traffic calming in Crossroads neighborhoods.
Hasek often bikes on his way to work and said he is excited about the improvements because they will help him feel safer.
“I get really nervous with these dirt bikes who like to pop wheelies, because my worst fear is that one of them is going to lose control, and this dirt bike is going to end up on top of me,” Hasek said. “Having to bike down, like Grand, for example, and… when they’ve got these big shows… It really makes me feel unsafe traveling through that district.”
Rea said his hope is that the city can make permanent infrastructure upgrades to make neighborhoods near Southwest Boulevard safer.
“Everyone is welcome and we want everyone to have a good time,” Rea said. “But when you make it unsafe and you behave in a reckless way with disregard for those who are there… then I don’t have any sympathy for that. I don’t have any tolerance for that.”
This story was originally published May 9, 2025 at 7:00 AM.
