Blue River Road round two

By Don Bradley

A public meeting to talk about the future of Blue River Road on October 1st started out pretty much one-sided.

Everybody who went to the microphone in the Center High School Auditorium said the same thing: Fix the road. Reopen the road.

Then the bicyclists showed up.

From then on, it was the blue shirts against the bike helmets.

One side wants the city to rebuild the winding, scenic road that closed down 17 years ago due to a crumbling surface caused by underground instability.

They want the north-south artery, but they also talk a lot of nostalgia of Sunday afternoon rides along the river, the treed overhang and the old road’s historic tie to Harry Truman.

They wear the blue t-shirts: “Save Blue River Road.”

Then there’s the mountain bikers. A large group entered the large auditorium seemingly stealth-like and stood in the back in full riding gear.

In the years of the road’s closing, the biking community has turned the Blue River area into a mountain biking Shangri-la. They like that barricades stop car traffic on both ends.

They don’t want the road reopened.

Several went to the mic and made their plea: Clean up the area, convert the roadway to be part of a multi-use, ADA approved trail for hiking and biking.

Afterwards, a woman went to the mic and challenged their standing.

“I want to know how many of these bikers actually live in Kansas City?” she asked.

“All of us!” came a united shout.

Sarah Hemme, one of the bikers, said Monday she believes the difference of opinion is largely based on how long somebody has lived in the area.

“It’s been a lot of years and there are a lot of people out here who don’t even remember the road ever being open,” said Hemme, who lives near where the road is closed.

The Oct. 1 meeting was hosted by Kansas City 6th district council members Andrea Bough and Johnathan Duncan, and 5th district council members Darrell Curls and Mayor Pro-Tem Ryana Parks-Shaw.

City Manager Mario Vasquez also attended.

Officials acknowledge that 17 years is long enough and the city needs to do whatever it’s going to do.

An earlier meeting in April drew complaints that not enough time was allowed for public comments. The council members wanted to clean that up so anybody who wanted to speak got to go to the mic at the recent meeting.

Jason Waldron, the city’s transportation director, started the event with laying out the available options for Blue River Road: essentially fixing the road where it is, moving the roadway to firmer earth or converting the site to a multi-use trail system.

The estimated cost of rebuilding the current road where it lies is $30 million to $46 million.

Waldron explained the broad range.

“We don’t know exactly what we’re dealing with underground,” he told the meeting. “We have to find rock or bring rock in.”

Money is an issue, he said. There’s only so much and there are competing projects around the city, including several in Southland districts.

Some of the pro-road speakers argued that the length of roadway that needed to be rebuilt was far shorter than the city has said.

One said a football field. Another said an eighth of a mile.

“That doesn’t cost $40 million,” one said.

Joe Nastasi, co-president of Center Planning and Development, made clear his group’s position regardless of cost.

“Whatever the number is, the community wants it open,” Nastasi told the meeting. He also mentioned that the closure affects emergency response times to certain neighborhoods.

The three other major Southland neighborhood groups, South Kansas City Alliance, Hickman Mills United Neighborhoods and Southern Communities Coalition take the same position.

The four groups presented a joint letter to the council members that blames the road’s decay on the city’s lack of maintenance on drainage pipes.

The letter went on to say that the city’s reputation is also on the line because a city manager at the time promised the road would be repaired and reopened.

“Our quality of life in historic Hickman Mills has actually diminished with the closing of the road,” the letter stated.

Waldron disputed that lack of maintenance was a factor.

The trail option does offer fiscal ease.

Estimated cost is $1-2 million.”

“Opening up the road just doesn’t make fiscal sense,” Hemme said.

“Are people’s curbs and sidewalks going to get fixed? I don’t know if people are thinking about that.”

She thinks the need for a north-south artery is served well by Holmes and Wornall roads and U.S. 71.

Logan Hely, executive director of the Heartland Conservation Alliance, said his group supports the trail option.

The meeting concluded with the four council members giving non-committal wrap-ups.