Is Kansas City prioritizing bike lanes over efficient vehicle travel? | Opinion

Bike lanes

I want to express my concern about changes to several major streets, including Broadway and Gillham. The addition of bike lanes that reduce each of these streets to a single lane has created significant traffic congestion and will make travel throughout the city increasingly difficult.

I support safe infrastructure for cyclists, but the number of bike lanes installed seems disproportionate to actual usage. Major streets have recently been renovated restricting traffic flow. These changes appear to prioritize bike lanes over efficient vehicle travel without evidence of corresponding bicycle demand.

I am unaware of any publicly shared study showing how many cyclists use, or are projected to use, these lanes compared with the volume of cars that travel through the city daily. These lane reductions push more traffic onto already congested roads, creating potentially unsafe conditions.

I respectfully request that the city provide transparency regarding traffic and bike usage studies that informed these changes, and that a review of the impact on vehicular traffic be conducted. Kansas City residents deserve streets that balance safety for all users with efficient travel for the majority of commuters.

- Christy Gautreaux, Kansas City

Political cruelty

Some people will remember the movie “Sophie’s Choice,” in which a mother is forced by Nazis to choose which of her children would live. It was an impossible choice, one no human being should ever face.

Today, some political leaders are forcing impossible choices on American families. When Republicans push to slash SNAP or dismantle the Affordable Care Act, they’re telling people: You can put food on the table or you can see a doctor, but not both. That’s not responsibility. It’s cruelty.

Most Missourians — Democrat, Republican or independent — want something simple: dinner on the table, kids seeing a doctor when they’re sick and seniors who don’t have to decide between medicine and groceries. That’s the Missouri we know.

We don’t have to become a country of impossible choices, where parents skip meals so children can eat or where treatable illnesses turn deadly. We can tell our elected leaders that we’ll give our votes only to politicians who make sure every family has food in the kitchen and the care they need to stay well. That’s the America our communities deserve.

- Ruth Smith, Washington, Missouri

Immigration bust

The Star’s sensational headline Nov. 10 on the front-page story by Eric Adler does not begin to explain the full story behind our immigration situation. (“Johnson County immigration busts lead to men in chains”)

The story is derived from a pedestrian’s video and serves only to degrade our federal agents and make the event look politically driven because it was the “anniversary of Trump’s election.”

I am curious to know if any of those taken into custody had outstanding criminal records. Did The Star even try to find out whether they were criminals, or did you just want to make illegal immigrants look like the victims here?

- Denise Guignon Slabotsky, Overland Park

Thanks? No

I’m a Vietnam vet. People again expressed gratitude for our “service” this past week, but to what? To country? To Constitution? To the Christian gospel (More than 60% of the U.S. populace professes Christianity, and nowhere in that Testament is militarism advocated, celebrated or warranted)?

Could it be that we’re indoctrinated in such beliefs, even in believing that such service is morally honorable? Oh boy! Could it be that such national solemnity has been a ruse concocted to cover for spending of our mostly young flesh and blood in service to the pursuit and maintenance of wealth, power and prestige? I think so.

Do we have awareness of that? It seems not. What we keep being fed is so crafted that such corruption doesn’t seem to dawn on us. If it does, the potential consequences of such awareness are so uncomfortable that we rarely entertain it. Are we the home of the brave or a cult of conditioned, innocent goodness that continues to be deceived and desecrated?

I want no attention given to my service history, appreciating that any such reverence, in so subtle and devious a way, continues giving license to such wickedness. Full stop!

- Martin Dressman, Prairie Village

Slate debate

We continue to be blessed with strong local candidates. However, candidates in many locales run for non-partisan positions such as school boards and community college trustees on slates with party backing and party identification.

That might help voters identify candidates’ overall philosophies, and if you feel strongly about a particular issue, you might want to vote only for people who take that particular stance. But many issues are not clear-cut, and decisions benefit from robust, constructive discussion and careful consideration of alternatives.

Although I expect candidates to bring strong opinions, I fear that party affiliations and slates “label” candidates, setting them up to be more rigid in their positions, seeing themselves as having a duty to support their slate and a particular constituency, and viewing people who disagree as opponents rather than associates.

I believe the most valuable diversity is diversity in how people think. So, I generally prefer to have balance on a board rather than to elect a uniformly minded slate. Election results suggest that voters are (blindly?) voting based on the slates. I suggest that voters take the time to select strong candidates from each slate.

- Claude Thau, Overland Park

Tax trap

Although I live in Ontario, Canada, I maintain close ties with friends in Kansas and look to the Sunflower State’s leadership to help solve a critical federal issue.

The United States is one of only two nations that taxes people based on citizenship rather than residence. This policy creates a nightmare for Americans living abroad. We face double taxation and complex bureaucracy, often paying accountants thousands just to prove we owe the IRS nothing.

This isn’t about wealthy people hiding money; it is about ordinary Americans who are effectively punished for living outside U.S. borders. Regulations label us as financial risks, causing many foreign banks to deny us basic checking accounts.

This system traps Americans and discourages us from freely moving capital back to the U.S. or moving to states such as Kansas in the future.

I urge Sens. Jerry Moran and Roger Marshall to support residence-based taxation. It is a commonsense reform that aligns with the values of economic freedom that Kansans hold dear.

- Gabriel Morrow, Englehart, Ontario, Canada

This story was originally published November 16, 2025 at 5:01 PM.