Missouri Bicycle News

An article in the Kansas City Star details efforts of a neighborhood group to improve the area of Troost Avenue in Kansas City where UMKC student Pei Chen was killed crossing the street:

The groups suggested that traffic-calming approaches on Troost could include ticketing speeders, improving signs in school zones and using volunteer crossing guards. . . .

Kansas City recently lost a trial about its treatment of the crosswalk in question and the family of Pei Chen was awarded a large judgement:

Despite the jury verdict, a city traffic official said this week that studies indicate a light is not needed at the crossing. Since Chen's death, in fact, the city has removed flashing lights there and increased the speed limit from 25 mph to 35 mph. The intersections on both sides of that intersection have lights where pedestrians can cross.

Meanwhile Star columnist Mike Hendricks wrote a column about the city's response to the problem intersection:

A day after a jury declared that the city shared responsibility in the death of a 20-year-old pedestrian, I paid a return visit to the Kansas City crosswalk where that Chinese piano student was run down.

That crosswalk at 53rd Street and Troost Avenue is even more dangerous now than on the morning Pei Chen was struck by a minivan. . . .

Here's a dangerous intersection. Between 1999 and Chen's death, 21 accidents were reported there — four of them involving pedestrians.

Rockhurst University students and faculty risk their lives at the crossing every day. It's one of the main pedestrian entrances to the campus and is near the dorms.

On the day she was hit, Chen was headed from her room at Rockhurst to classes at the nearby University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Many more details about the situation can be found in a previous MoBikeFed News article.

Related:

News: Parents of pedestrian killed in KC crosswalk sue city

News: Mike Hendricks: What to do about a killer crosswalk?

permanent link to article: "Efforts to improve area where pedestrian Pei Chen was killed in KC"
posted by Brent Hugh at 10/17/2004 12:29:53 PM |comment on this article