KC Transportation Committee recommends 100 speed humps for traffic calming

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Residents in 50 locations around Kansas City, Missouri could see two speed humps installed as part of an effort to speed up the process to slow vehicles down.

“I think it’s the first step of a bigger, more aggressive program for sure,” Kansas City District 4 Councilmember Eric Bunch said.

He hopes the batch of 50 locations and 100 speed humps is the first of what will become a better-defined process to request and install the humps.

“100 is a good step and I think this helps us figure out the process,” Bunch said.

Neighbors tell FOX4 that the drivers on Chestnut Avenue go too fast, making it dangerous for residents and damaging cars left on the side of the road. It’s why two locations on Chestnut are due to get speed humps, coming as a relief to Dr. Belinda Johnson.

“I was out on the street and stopping traffic because the kids were crossing and they were speeding,” Johnson said.

That was her temporary fix until the more permanent measure is installed.

Two-hundred requests for speed humps has been narrowed down to 50 based on how many times the spots were requested and other traffic and road information.

“This is a one-way so a lot of people just speed right through here without even thinking about the safety of the kids,” Johnson said.

Councilman Bunch’s District 4 will get 20 of the 100 humps but he’s looking to Detroit, where our affiliate station reports the city installed the 10,000th speed hump in October 2023. Detroit officials say average speed is down 20 miles per hour on those streets and traffic crashes are down more than 20%.

Bunch says Kansas City’s speed hump work is just one tool in the larger traffic safety toolbox that’s part of the Vision Zero initiative.

“It says this is a priority of the city’s and this is something that we’re going to fund and go through the planning process to implement in the long run,” Bunch said.

Linda Powell is already seeing the benefits with two speed humps outside her home.

“I didn’t think I would like it and I didn’t want it close to my home, but now since they put them in, I appreciate it a lot,” Powell said. “Before they were here, there was a lot of traffic and they would speed up and down.”

We have more information about Kansas City’s Vision Zero efforts here.

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