Mission Road

From 71st Street to 75th Street Road, Prairie Village, Kansas

The City of Prairie Village, Kansas wanted to improve pedestrian safety along Mission Road, by reducing the number of lanes. Knowing three-lane roadways can support traffic volumes of four-lane roadways, the city viewed this as a great opportunity to make this section more pedestrian friendly.

They started by selecting Affinis to review an existing traffic study. We looked at current traffic, future traffic and the priorities of the community, which were to increase safety. Our team ultimately found this roadway section could be reduced from four, undivided lanes to a three-lane section with a center, two way, left turn lane (TWLTL), while still providing good traffic flow.

We then began moving forward with the roadway, traffic engineering, storm, and sidewalk design, as well as survey. Our approach used a significant amount of community input. We started by building consensus with the council sub-committee before bringing it to the public. We showed the committee how a road diet would work and illustrated how the engineering principles would be put into action. This allowed them to confidently speak with constituents and make decisions easily. We also gave residents design options throughout our public engagement process, increasing buy-in.

Sustainability

To encourage pedestrian usage, we scaled street lighting and added placemaking with banners along the section. We also provided green space between the sidewalk and back of curb to improve aesthetics. Seat walls and benches with low-maintenance planting areas created an inviting pedestrian route.