Dorri Partain
Dorri Partain
Managing Editor
A plan enacted in May 2020 — using a task force composed of City of Kansas City staff, council members and community partners — is utilizing multi-disciplinary strategies to eliminate traffic fatalities and serious injuries throughout the city limits by 2030.
This visionary plan is named Vision Zero.
In September 2022, City Council created a new department — the Office of Unhoused Solutions — to tackle an increasing population of unhoused persons.
This comprehensive five-year plan to end homelessness is named Zero KC.
No doubt that any city resident totally unfamiliar with either plan would be able to clarify or relate either nomenclature as pertaining to traffic calming or assisting the unhoused. And those of us, such as the media who routinely cover these topics, have to discern carefully that we’re referencing the correct plan title in discussions about low barrier shelters and speed bumps.
For those that are taking notes, Vision Zero is installing speed bumps and Zero KC is funding low-barrier shelters.
Of these two departments — Vision Zero is part of the Public Works department — motorists around town have visually seen the change in our roadways, and construction of traffic calming measures including speed bumps, raised intersections and crosswalks and protected bike lanes.
While the name “Vision Zero” implies that city planners expect these improvements, i.e. a vision that traffic fatalities will be zero in 10 years, the actual Vision Zero for many motorists is “Wow, I did not see there’s a speed bump (bike lane, traffic circle, pedestrian bump-out) there!” and quickly react by slamming on the brakes or merging into another lane.
Not exactly an improvement to road safety when drivers encounter unexpected changes, especially while driving a roadway they are not familiar with.
As for “Zero KC,” one has to interject additional wordage, like “unhoused persons in” between words Zero and KC, for the plan name to make any sense. Now almost three years since its implementation, this five-year plan will probably need more years and millions more dollars to have any impact, given the number of unhoused camps that continue to spring up on a daily basis, in highly-visible Northeast locations.
All name confusion aside, the City of Kansas City has taken on some lofty goals, all funded at city resident’s expense. Roadways will always need improvement — filling of potholes, regrading and paving, new curbs — and we citizens expect to pay for that. Roadway safety is paramount, but the expectation to eliminate fatalities and injuries by reevaluating our city streets overlooks the factor of human error that accounts for more than 50 percent of traffic accidents in the first place.
Throughout history, mankind has had its unhoused populations. Just a decade ago, the unhoused mainly lived in the Downtown core but have increasingly moved outward into urban residential areas, such as Northeast. Some only need a little assistance to find housing and employment, while others need assistance for years and, to its credit, Zero KC has worked to collate services that already exist. The problem is, and will continue to be, that there’s always another person or family on the verge of being homeless, so even the idea that this issue is solvable with a five-year plan is debatable.
For both Vision Zero and Zero KC, the clock is ticking — and city residents are waiting for the countdown to zero.
For more detailed information, visit:
https://www.kcmo.gov/city-hall/housing/zero-kc, https://www.kcmo.gov/city-hall/departments/public-works/vision-zero.
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