Unofficial Traffic Circle

This past holiday season brought little snow, except for a lovely white Christmas, but Armour Hills residents were their usual festive selves. To mark the occasion, as well as the City's break, a few neighbors decorated the cones alerting drivers on Edgevale Road and 68th Terrace of an unfinished man hole restoration project.

Just in case the City did forget, I have been calling regularly to ensure this squeaky wheel gets some grease. I hope the crew that comes to complete the job feels the holiday spirit. Let's just hope they make it before the Epiphany! Until then, let us all enjoy or lovely impromptu traffic circle...

 

School Board Election

I know it has been a long while since I have submitted a post or even called 311. Last Fall, my family and I decided to run for the Kansas City Public Schools Board. It took a lot of work, and it took my attention of my daily grind with the City's 311 call center. It did not, however, distract me from my duties as your City Liaison with the Armour Hills Homes Association. 2012 was our neighborhoods best year, and I look forward to our progress in the coming year.

If you want to follow my other blog about the school board election, please visit www.GunnarHand.com. I did win a contested race, and I thank my opponent and everyone who provided there support along the way. Add improving our public education system to the list of to dos for this City Planner!

 

Armour Hills Tree Planting & Pruning Project

Building partnerships with City Hall finally paid off. Last year City Hall may have directed $30,000 to Armour Hills for crosswalk restripping around Arbor Villa Park and along our portion of the Trolley Trail from Gregory to 65th Street, but this year we topped that.

After some hard negotiations after the redistricting went into affect last January, I convinced both Councilman Sharp and Taylor of our new 6th Council District to throw us a bone. And what a very large bone it is. Out of their FY 2012-2013 Public Improvement Advisory Committee (PIAC) contingency budget, the 6th Council District allocated $90,000 to Armour Hills for a tree planting and pruning project.

Every street tree will be pruned and a massive planting project will occur this Fall. By this time next year every street tree spot will be filled, and our old growth urban canopy will be properly maintained for future growth and prosperity. For our end of the deal, the Armour Hills Board agreed to prune all the trees that we planted using another PIAC grant in 2004 (approximately 150 trees), and we negotiated with the Parks Department to reduce the overall cost by pruning the boulevards in our neighborhood (Gregory Boulevard and Rockhill Road).

When the trees are planted, it will be up to us to properly maintain them. The first couple years of a trees life are the most important. If you have a new street tree in your yard, please water it in the summer. Thank you to Councilman John Sharp and Councilman Scott Taylor for making our neighborhood and the City a more livable, sustainable place!

69th Street Speed Bumps

A neighbor of mind asked if I could help request speed bumps on 69th Street between Rockhill and Grand. For those of you not familiar with the area, that is the pick-up and drop off street for Academie Lafayette. Needless to say there is a lot of traffic on the side streets during school days, and safety is a critical part to any walk to school program.

After working with the City's Public Works Department, they conducted a study and determined that the amount of traffic on the street did not warrant any speed bumps. At least, they did not approve any government funded speed bumps. We are now working on the signatures required by neighbors so that the Homes Association can fund the project. Since this project straddles two HOAs, Armour Hills and Oak Meyer Gardens, it would be a shared cost.

While we will continue with this important pedestrian safety issue, the City at least took the time to install 25 mph speed limit signs. Every little bit helps...

Arbor Villa Crosswalk Signage

It appears that someone had a hard time with driving over the speed bumps on Main Street at Arbor Villa Park. Watch out pedestrians. Even the new signage, crosswalk stripping, and speed bumps are not enough to encourage good driving behavior in perhaps the most "pedestrian friendly" part of our neighborhood, Arbor Villa Park.

A quick call into 311 did the trick. I encourage you all to call in as well. As I have stated many times on this blog, the more people who call 311, the faster the issue is resolved.

Trolley Trail Bridge Bollards

When I began working with the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA) as the Armour Hills Homes Association liaison, there was a laundry list of projects that we came up with along our portion of the Trolley Trail between 65th Street and Gregory Boulevard. One of those projects was the replacement of the light bollards for the underpass of the Trolley Trail bridge located at the end of Edgevale Road at Brookside Road.

After a lot of negotiation and cost estimating, it was determined that it would be cheaper and faster to simply remove all the lights, which had a long history of deferred maintenance and vandalism, and replace them with bollards. We all decided that the light under the bridge was sufficient.

The KCATA took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather this month and replaced the standing lights with regular bollards. With all the landscaping recently completed along the trail (another one of our requests), the bridge is looking on the up and up. In the long-run, however, the bridge will need to be repaired. You can see its deterioration in the photos.