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.

Crosswalk Stripping

Since I became the City Liaison for the Armour Hills Homes Association, I have had the opportunity to work closely with the City's 4th District Councilmembers, in particular Councilwoman Jan Marcason and her staff. This exposure has brought great insights into the City, local politics, and for the purpose of this blog, the delivery of goods and services.

When I was working with the 4th District on their 2010 Public Improvements Advisory Committee (PIAC) grants, they mentioned a pot of money for crosswalk stripping. I had several ideas. At the 2010 Armour Hills Homes Association annual meeting, many of our members expressed safety concerns on Brookside Road. All of our members must cross Brookside Road to access the Trolley Trail.

I wrote a list of all the crossings in our district (from 65th Street to Gregory on Brooskide Road) as well as the speed bumps on Main Street and the crossing for Arbor Villa Park on 66th Terrace at Main Street, and they are now on the list. The crews came out last week to paint the speed bumps on Main Street and Edgevale Road yesterday, and they are back today to finish all of our requested crosswalks.

Fall Water Leak

For the past summer there has been a small water leak down the street from where I live. I have called it in several times to 311, but alas, nothing has been done. When I called it in again today the 311 operator told me that there is a work order out on this leak, but that it is a "cold" case. A "Cold" case is one of least importance.

The unusually hot summer has lead to some serious upheaval all over the City, and the old and worn pipes under our great City have been bursting all over. Just this morning a larger main break occurred on Main Street at Arbor Villa Park. Fearful that this would surely create a disaster for the Armour Hills Ice Cream Social tonight, I called that one in and they crew is already here working on it.

Priorities are a tricky matter in a bureaucracy.

66th Street Light Malfunction

In a time when every cent counts for all levels of government, I hate to see waste. Especially when that waste also contributes to energy consumption, the unnecessary burning of fossil fuels, and taxpayer dollars flushed down the drain. So when I noticed that the street light on 66th Street between Main Street and Edgevale Road, I called 311.

I noticed the same problem with a street light a few weeks ago just off Brookside Road. Let's see how long this one takes to fix. The clock is ticking and the dollars are spending...

Busted Sign

While I have been pushing for months now to repaint several crosswalks and the speed bumps along Main Street, today I noticed that one of the signs had fallen into disrepair. It looks as if the top screw has rusted out completely. I find it hard to believe someone would want a 15 miles per hour sign when there are so many better ones to vandalize.

After a quick phone call to 311, and all the recent emphasis on Main Street, the City quickly responded to my requests, and finished this job while wrapping up the crosswalk and speed bump stripping work. However, a second crew came out not a day after they finished painting the speed bumps, shaved the edges down, and re-asphalted the sides. This, of course, ruined the newly painted stripes and the thousands of dollars of work that went into them. Can someone please coordinate these efforts!

Arbor Villa Park Speed Bumps

Last week I received a call from my neighbor who lives directly adjacent to the lead Main Street speed bump that slows traffic around Arbor Villa Park. Like many neighbors, there have been numerous complaints about cars catapulting across these bumps in the middle of the night. After all these years, there seems to be absolutely no learning curve for local drivers. I'll admit, even I sometimes have to break a little harder than my wife would prefer prior to a speed bump.

Luckily, this complaint came in right as I was wrapping up work on another project as City Liaison for the Armour Hills Homes Association to restripe local crosswalks (See Crosswalks Stripping Blog post) and speed bumps. With the line of communication already open to the Public Works Department, I asked them to asses these bumps. They came out and realized that additional signage was warranted, and that all three speed bumps on Main Street were about 2 feet higher then their guidelines permit.

So, they came out to ground them down, and about a week later they showed up to redo some signage, clear some brush and resurface the speed bumps. Finally, toady a seperate contractor showed up to redo all the stripping on the speed bumps. Now we wait for all the crosswalks in the neighborhood and around the park to be restripped...

Main Street Plates

For the past two months the City's Water Department has left to large steel plates on Main Street at 68th Terrace. I have seen people swerve to miss them driving in both directions and almost  not make the swerve back into the lane. It is almost like we have a new speed bump for Arbor Villa Park.

While the water main that is under those plates is now fixed, we are still waiting for the second crew that is responsbile to come by and finish the job. While it might be too hot to lay asphalt now, it certainly was not two, three, four, five and/or six weeks ago.

Finally, after three months of wrangling with 311, Councilwoman Marcason's office, and the Water Department, the plates were removed yesterday, the road resurfaced, and our primary corridor returned to normal, for now...

Tree Removal

After a long winter, the neighborhood is a buzz with homeowners working on their lawns and gardens. To join in the festivities, my wife and I decided to bring out an arborist for an estimate for some overdue maintenance on our property. Of everything that needed to be done, the arborist said our number one priority should be the removal of the Elm Tree on the Main Street right-of-way because it was surely rotting from the inside.

As one of the few surviving trees from the Dutch Elm disease over two decades ago, I was sad to see it go. But instead of paying a private company to do the job, I called 311 and kindly explained how this street tree was a liability to the City as it could fall over at anytime. They had a crew come out to chop it down within two weeks.

Sure it took the City over 120 days to send out a stump removal crew (the stump removal is done by a different crew then the tree removal), but there is a lesson here. Calling 311 works, and everyone needs to participate in making their communities better. I am working with the City Forester right now to select a tree replacement...

Thanks for the free mulch Kansas City, Missouri!

Spring Water Leaks



When the cold earth finally begins to thaw in Kansas City, it expands, and for the City's old water pipes, that mean leaks. Lots of them. It is the same story every Fall when the warm soil begins to contract and the ground shifts ever so slightly.

Moving from Los Angeles where water is a precious resource and nearly 60% of it is brought in from outside the region via aqueducts (thank you Colorado River, Owens River Valley, and Northern California), I have a real problem seeing water being waster. Not only is it a waste of money and energy, but a waste of our most precious resource.

As I walked to my part-time volunteer job down Main Street to the Children's Place, I spotted a few water leaks. One of them close to the early childhood charity has already been repaired, the other has been marked by the Water Department, but nothing has been done yet...