The city of Prairie Village may lower the speed limit along a busy pedestrian stretch of Tomahawk Road that includes a public park and the Shops retail complex.
Last month, the Prairie Village City Council during a council committee of the whole session agreed to direct city staff to draft an ordinance lowering the speed limit along Tomahawk Road between Roe Avenue and Mission Road from 30 to 25 miles per hour.
This comes months after the city council went ahead with a traffic study along this same stretch of Tomahawk to see if it justified lowering the speed limit.
Traffic engineers told the city council last month that the study found Tomahawk Road “appears to be operating safely today,” and recommended no changes.
Despite that opinion, some councilmembers still pushed for a lower speed limit to keep traffic consistent with the rest of Tomahawk Road, which has a speed limit of 25 mile per hour other than the stretch in question.
In 2021, the city of Mission Hills also lowered Tomahawk Road’s speed limit from 30 to 25 miles per hour between Mission and State Line roads.
Councilmembers push speed limit change forward
- Councilmembers Dave Robinson, Ian Graves and Cole Robinson all voted against the motion to direct staff to lower the speed limit.
- Graves said he believes physical traffic calming measures need to come before lowering the speed limit, which he doesn’t know will increase safety, particularly at pedestrian crossings along Tomahawk Road.
- Councilmembers Inga Selders, Chi Ngyuen, Lori Sharp, Ron Nelson, Tyler Agniel, Greg Shelton and Terry O’Toole all supported lowering the speed limit.
- Selders, who has spearheaded this issue alongside Nelson, argued that this is a high pedestrian traffic area of Prairie Village — that includes Porter Park and the Shops of Prairie Village. The rest of Tomahawk Road in Prairie Village and Mission Hills is already 25 miles per hour, she noted.
- “Clean it up, let’s make it 25 miles an hour,” Selders said. “That’s my last plea on this.”
There are also plans to install a traffic calming device
- At the same time that Selders began working to lower the speed limit, some residents began petitioning the city last year for traffic calming measures along that stretch of Tomahawk.
- Traffic calming is a technical term for measures meant to slow or control the pace of traffic and can include things like speed tables, roundabouts and raised crosswalks. (Here’s the Post’s explainer on traffic calming.)
- Residents can petition the city for traffic calming measures, but that is separate from the city’s process for changing speed limits, which must be initiated at the city level.
- Public Works Director Keith Bredehoeft said traffic calming measures the city is looking into along that stretch of Tomahawk include repainting lines to make lanes narrower, as well as installing signs that show drivers what speed they are going.
Next steps:
- Bredehoeft told the city council last month that city staff needs to bring an item back to the city council to change the ordinance to lower the speed limit along Tomahawk Road between Roe and Mission.
- It is not on the agenda for the March 3 city council meeting.
- Once the ordinance change is approved, public works will install the new speed limit signs.
- The additional traffic calming measures are estimated to be installed this summer, Bredehoeft said.
Go deeper: Watch the city council’s entire discussion online here, starting at 1:18:28.
