Artists created colorful murals at each intersection corner in August 2022. File Photo

Dorri Partain

Managing Editor

In August 2022, a group of commissioned artists transformed the intersection at 12th Street and Benton Boulevard with street corner murals and other painted elements to give pedestrians refuge and narrowed streets to cross safely.

Funding for this project came from Bloomberg Philanthropies — sponsors of an Asphalt Art Project in 40 cities in 2022 across the U.S. In addition to the Benton Boulevard intersection, Project Coordinator DuRon Netsell completed a similar project at the intersection of Westport Road and Wyandotte Avenue in 2021. 

Netsell’s team with Street Smarts Design + Build partnered with Kansas City Artists Coalition to select the artists and submitted designs. Murals were painted at each of the intersection corners, along with medians, a traffic signal box and two benches.

In a previous interview with The Northeast News, Netsell said this intersection was chosen by the City of Kansas City.

“They have a lot of data through their Vision Zero Initiative, which is to bring traffic deaths to zero by 2030,” Netsell said in July 2022. “They gave me a list of intersections and most of them were super crazy busy arterials.”

Additionally, Netsell stated he hoped the City would improve the condition of the asphalt, so this artwork would last.

“What we have found is that when asphalt is in pretty bad shape like this, paint comes out much, much quicker,” Netsell said. “So we’ll ask Public Works if they can patch and resurface this area. We’re told that it’s not on the resurfacing schedule so won’t be all new, but especially on that corner and this corner, there’s some serious cracking so I’m hoping that we can do it in time because it will allow the art to last a lot longer and just creates a much smoother walking surface.”

Each corner and medians on 12th Street were outlined with metal bollards and concrete curbs installed by Public Works to define the pedestrian bump outs and help channel traffic.

Once completed, this project received positive feedback but as months turned to years, damaged and missing bollards, combined with peeling paint, provided fodder for criticism — not to mention these changes created traffic snarls at rush hour as motorists tried to navigate a busy intersection sans left turn lanes.

As Public Works outlined its repaving schedule for 2025, last month the bollards and curbs were removed to begin grading along 12th Street.

The Northeast News received this response to an inquiry via email: “As far as plans go for the 12th and Benton intersection, Kansas City Public Works is removing the parking blocks and murals to make it a traditional intersection with dedicated left turn lanes. The City held a public meeting on changes to the 12th Street corridor back in February, where details about 12th and Benton were presented to the community,” said Ryan McGonigle, public information officer, Kansas City Public Works

Here at The Northeast News, we began to scratch our heads with the numerous questions spawned by this response.

Where was this public meeting and who attended? The Northeast News receives dozens of emails regarding meetings, hearings and other City events but never heard about this February meeting.

Apparently, Independence Plaza Neighborhood Council (IPNC) board members weren’t informed about this meeting either, and stated that neither any representative from Public Works attended a neighborhood meeting nor  was anyone from IPNC aware of said meeting they could have attended regarding changes at this intersection within their neighborhood boundaries.

Noting the Bloomberg grant, which funded the project, the IPNC board stated in an emailed response:

“Our neighborhood members are curious if the traffic calming measures at that corner, which have been there over the past few years, actually worked? We are unsure where to find the data from before the project and during the project for comparison purposes.”

The same statement questioned the preparation and timing of the project, which led to its shortened duration. 

“There was another location in Westport that was very successful and held up well. We collectively believe the reason it didn’t hold up in ours was due to poor preparation methods on the street, and the weather was too hot at the time of year that it was painted,” IPNC members shared.

The Westport location mentioned by IPNC included additional streetscaping, with the placement of boulders and potted plants. During a visit to that location to check the condition, The Northeast News discovered the original traffic-calming murals were recently replaced with permanent traffic-calming bump outs constructed of concrete, along with plantings and landscaping.

Paving along 12th Street is completed and now awaits restriping and painting of turn lanes, and maybe that’s the end of the story as far as Public Works is concerned.

As far as the $25,000 Bloomberg grant is concerned though, The Northeast News questions whether that funding was utilized to its best ability. Several artists were compensated and able to expand their portfolio, but the art they created was quickly compromised by errant traffic and weather.

The bollards and curbs, whether those elements were paid with this grant or not, had to be installed by City employees and then removed a few years later — and we all know our Kansas City Earning Tax dollars pay for that — so, this project wasn’t entirely on the backs of Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Midtown KC Now, which coordinated the 2021 Asphalt Art project in Westport with Netsell, turned its traffic-calming project into a permanent feature.

Here in Historic Northeast, those elements simply withered away to the point that what remained was removed —- in less than three years.

*At press time, the Northeast News had not received responses from questions posed to the City’s Communications Department or comments from DuRon Netsell and the Lykins Neighborhood Association.*