Mike Hendricks: What to do about a killer crosswalk?

The Kansas City Star's "Bike Guy", columnist Mike Hendricks, recently wrote about a problem intersection in Kansas City, in the area between the University of Missouri-Kansas City and Rockhurst University.

This is the crosswalk in which UMKC music student Pei Chen was recently killed by an automobile speeding in a school zone and illegally passing cars stopped to let Chen cross. Hendricks writes:

How many pedestrians will be run down in the crosswalk at 53rd Street and Troost Avenue before the city installs a stoplight there?

More than four, which is the number of people on foot -- including one fatality -- hit at that crossing in the last four years.

"...Based on...traffic volumes, pedestrian activities and guidelines set nationally," the Kansas City Public Works Department reports, "pedestrian signals are not justified at this T-intersection at this time."

Hendricks quotes KCMO city councilman Jim Rowland who says, "Unfortunately, somewhere along the way we've lost the notion of what it means to be a pedestrian-oriented society."

The motorist who killed Chen has been charged with reckless and imprudent driving, a misdemeanor. Drivers who negligently kill pedestrians in most other states are routinely charged with involuntary manslaughter or negligent homicide. Under Missouri law such charges are possible as well, but Missouri prosecutors rarely bring them when pedestrians and cyclists are killed by motorists, regardless of the degree of negligence involved.