By Paul Thompson

Northeast News

November 25, 2016

KANSAS CITY, Missouri – Northeast residents will have to be patient, but the Mid America Regional Council (MARC) has announced some $7.35 million in infrastructure improvements for the intersection of Independence Avenue and The Paseo.

The catch? The federal grant money being utilized for the upgrades won’t be made available until 2019, and according to Project Manager James Wang, construction isn’t expected to begin until 2020. The Kansas City Parks and Recreation department held an open house regarding potential improvements to the intersection in February of 2016 at Kansas City University. During that event, Parks and Rec solicited feedback from the community about their preferred modifications to The Paseo, presenting five options for attendees to consider.

“This intersection has historically ranked as one of the top high-accident locations in the city,” said Wang. “It’s because of the configuration of the intersection. The median width on The Paseo is too small for two intersections, but too large for one intersection.”

Based on the feedback provided, staff concluded that the most promising option was a plan to realign The Paseo and reduce traffic by creating a single intersection at Independence Avenue. A component of that plan includes potentially adding a left turn lane on Independence Avenue in order to ease congestion at the intersection.

“There’s no left turn restriction on Independence for the peak hours,” said Wang. “Often you can see that cars are trying to take left turns off of Independence. It’s backing up so much, and the traffic behind those left-turn vehicles get stuck at the intersection.”

Another element of the plan could include the elimination of the bridge that currently carries traffic westbound over The Paseo just north of the intersection at Independence Avenue. Wang said that the merge point of that bridge traffic with The Paseo is particularly dangerous because southbound traffic heading towards Independence Avenue approaches at a difficult angle.

“When you’re sitting at that merge point, it’s not easy to see. It’s not really a 90-degree merge,” said Wang. “That ramp will be taken out. We’re looking at maybe creating a second intersection to the north of Independence. It would connect to Cliff Drive as a regular at-grade intersection.”

Wang cautioned that final plans aren’t yet completed for the project, which he emphasized is still more than two years out. He added, however, that detailed plans are expected to be shared with the public as soon as they are made available.