KSHB 41 reporter Charlie Keegan covers politics in Kansas and Missouri. He learned about this issue during KSHB 41 News' Let's Talk Midtown event. A viewer also emailed the newsroom asking for help understanding Broadway Boulevard's new design. Share your story idea with Charlie.
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Drivers, cyclists and pedestrians have all started noticing the new medians, green crosswalks, and angled parking spots on Broadway Boulevard between 31st and 43rd streets in Midtown Kansas City, Missouri.
The city calls this new design a road diet.
"This has been a four-lane racetrack," said Mark Dodd, of Big Dude's Music City, located at 38th Street and Broadway Boulevard.
The road diet slims that racetrack down. Instead of five lanes of traffic, there's now one lane of travel in each direction, with a turn lane in the middle, parking on the sides and bike lanes.
"I was scratching my head, thinking, who was the brainchild behind this? But I'm starting to appreciate it," Dodd admitted.
However, there seems to be a bit of confusion.
People have posted about the new design on Reddit.
Viewer Kelly emailed the KSHB 41 newsroom asking, "Can you help us understand?"
And the road project came up at our Let's Talk Midtown event earlier in the month.
"Coming here tonight, Charlie, there were a couple, three people who tried to run into me," Ryan Mott, a cyclist and Midtown resident, said when asked how often he gets nervous about cars while riding.
The city said green crosswalks are areas where cars and bicycles can intersect.
"The green paint helps cyclists to know, look over your shoulder," Mott said. "But we really gotta have people driving, paying attention to that too because they’re the ones driving 4,000 pounds plus.”
The red paint indicates areas of the road for buses only.
Soon, drivers won't be able to park along the curbs. That area will become a mobility lane for bicycles and scooters.
Drivers will park in a new striped area away from the curb. This is similar to the design the city implemented on Armour Boulevard.
"It gets a little slower, but that's probably the idea they were going for," said James Barajas, of Cooper's Broadway Tobacco.
The ultimate goal is to make the road safer for people inside their cars and outside. There have been more than 400 crashes on this road since 2015.
The changes are part of the city's larger Vision Zero mission to have zero traffic-related fatalities.
"Am I rigid or pliable? I'm pliable, unless I get grumpy. And so I've changed my behavior on the street," Dodd said.
A rule the city passed in 2024 says that when it's time to resurface a street, Public Works has to engage with the community about whether to put priority streets on a road diet. This section of Broadway was due to be repaved in 2025.
The city spent the summer gathering feedback and picked this layout from three options.
KCMO's Public Works Department said crews should finish painting all the new stripes in December, but they'll be back in the spring and summer installing more components.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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