Kansas City crash statistics and trends

Kansas City is split down the middle by a state line, and that shapes how crash data gets collected as much as how traffic actually moves. Missouri and Kansas run separate transportation departments and crash-reporting systems, even though the same commuters cross State Line Road every day. Here's what the numbers from both sides of the metro actually show, and where.

Fewer deaths in 2025, but it took years to get there

Sixty-eight people died in car crashes in Kansas City, Missouri in 2025, a 30% drop from the 97 killed in 2024¹². It's the lowest annual total since the city adopted its Vision Zero resolution in 2021, committing to eliminate traffic deaths by 2030¹. Those 68 deaths came alongside more than 15,500 non-fatal crashes citywide in the same year¹.

The improvement didn't happen on its own. The city doubled its Vision Zero budget to $8 million for the 2025-2026 fiscal year and finished more than 40 safety projects in 2025, including 13 "road diets" that convert a travel lane into a turn lane, median, or bike lane, plus new signals or pedestrian hybrid beacons at five intersections¹. Transportation Director Jason Waldron framed the scale of the problem this way: "We've spent over 100 years investing in our roadway network. It's going to take investment and time to reverse these trends¹."

Missouri's statewide numbers moved the same direction. The state recorded 911 traffic deaths in 2025, down 5% from 955 in 2024 and the third straight year of decline, a 14% drop from three years earlier³. Pedestrian deaths, though, hit a record 148 in 2024, a 16% jump from 2023, according to MoDOT's own tracking⁴.

Where the crashes cluster

City data points to a handful of streets carrying an outsized share of the damage. Of the roughly 190 traffic deaths Kansas City recorded in 2022 and 2023 combined, Truman Road alone accounted for 12, the highest single-street total, with Independence Avenue, Prospect Avenue, Troost Avenue, and Ward Parkway rounding out the deadliest corridors⁵. Planners call this cluster the "high-injury network," first mapped in 2022 to show where drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists are most likely to be killed or seriously hurt⁶.

Troost Avenue has drawn the most attention. Councilmember Eric Bunch has pushed a corridor-wide overhaul between Truman Road and Bannister Road, a stretch that recorded 26 deaths and more than 3,600 crashes over the past decade⁶. The city applied for a $21 million federal RAISE grant to fund the redesign, and a rebuilt crosswalk at 51st and Troost is already finished⁶. Councilmember Melissa Robinson, whose Third District includes part of the corridor, has pointed out the toll isn't spread evenly: "There is a disproportionate number of individuals specifically living in the Third District that are experiencing preventable deaths⁶." Prospect Avenue is getting its own fix, a nearly two-mile rebuild between Linwood Boulevard and Emanuel Cleaver II Boulevard backed by a $10 million federal grant, and Independence Avenue is slated for work under a 24-mile Bi-State Sustainable Reinvestment Corridor initiative¹.

Pedestrians and cyclists are carrying more of the risk

Who dies in Kansas City crashes has shifted over the past few years. In 2024, 17 of the city's 97 traffic deaths were pedestrians and one was a bicyclist, compared with 20 pedestrians and four cyclists among 2023's 102 deaths². By 2025, nearly half of the city's 68 traffic deaths involved a pedestrian or cyclist, a far higher share than in prior years even though the overall death count fell¹. In November 2025, a pedestrian was struck and killed near 46th Street and Blue Ridge Cutoff, close to the Truman Sports Complex, one of that year's fatalities in southeast Kansas City⁷.

Statewide, the trend runs the other way. Missouri pedestrian deaths were running 22% ahead of 2024's pace as of early December 2025, on top of that 2024 record of 148⁸⁴. Jon Nelson, MoDOT's state highway safety and traffic engineer, put it bluntly: "We are having trouble making progress. Compared to 10 years ago, people are driving faster and more distracted⁸." MoDOT's Kansas City district logged 8 of the state's 25 bicyclist deaths in 2025, and pedalcyclist fatalities rose 38% statewide even as pedestrian and motorcycle deaths each ticked down slightly⁹.

The Kansas side of the line

Kansas doesn't publish the kind of city-by-city fatality breakdown that Kansas City, Missouri does, so the clearest picture comes from statewide totals. Kansas recorded 347 traffic deaths in 2024, the fewest since the state began keeping records in 1947 and a steep drop from the 426 deaths logged at a 2020 peak¹⁰. KDOT Secretary Calvin Reed credited part of the improvement to road design: "KDOT is there because we want to make sure that we are designing our roads and doing what we can to help prevent serious injury and fatal crashes¹⁰."

On the ground in Johnson County, the routes that keep showing up are the interstates carrying the metro's commuter traffic. A 61-year-old Baldwin City man died in January 2025 after his car ran off northbound I-35 near 75th Street in Overland Park and struck a median barrier while swerving to avoid another vehicle¹¹. A month earlier, a 64-year-old Overland Park woman died in a multi-vehicle crash on the exit ramp from eastbound I-435 to Antioch Road, near U.S. 69¹².

Because the metro straddles both states, the Mid-America Regional Council coordinates safety planning across the line through its Destination Safe coalition, covering nine Missouri counties, including Jackson, Clay, and Platte, and four Kansas counties, including Wyandotte and Johnson. The coalition's shared target is holding regional traffic deaths to 180 or fewer a year¹³.

Construction is reshaping the map

Two big projects have already changed, or are about to change, how traffic moves through downtown. The rebuilt Buck O'Neil Bridge, which carries U.S. 169 across the Missouri River and connects to I-35, opened to northbound traffic in January 2024 after three years of construction and a budget near $258 million, replacing a span that had carried traffic since 1956¹⁴. It fully opened in both directions by the end of that year.

Now MoDOT is more than a year into Improve I-70 KC, a $237 million project rebuilding I-70 between the Paseo and U.S. 40/31st Street, touching cross streets like Prospect, Manchester, 18th, and 23rd along the way¹⁵. The project will replace 15 bridges and rehabilitate 7 more, and MoDOT has scheduled an 11-month full closure of that stretch in 2027, between downtown and the stadium complex¹⁵. Drivers who've adjusted to detours around the Buck O'Neil Bridge in recent years should expect another round of rerouting once that closure starts.

World Cup traffic is coming this summer

Kansas City hosts six FIFA World Cup 26 matches in June and July 2026, and MoDOT expects "hundreds of thousands of visitors" moving through the region during the tournament¹⁶. The agency has pushed nearly all state roadwork in the district off the roadway for the duration to preserve capacity¹⁶. Around Arrowhead Stadium, northbound Blue Ridge Cutoff will close at Raytown Road two hours before each match, reopen during the first half, then close again at halftime as the stadium empties, and residents in the neighborhood bounded by Blue Ridge Cutoff, Diztler Avenue, and East 43rd and 44th Streets will need a permit to reach their homes on match days¹⁷. Anyone driving near the stadium, or through downtown on I-70, should plan for slower, more congested trips through midsummer.

If you're hurt in a crash

A crash report from KCPD, the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department, Overland Park Police, or the Kansas Highway Patrol becomes the backbone of any insurance claim, so request a copy as soon as it's available. Because the metro's worst corridors, Troost, Prospect, Independence Avenue, and the I-35/I-435 interchanges among them, carry a disproportionate share of serious crashes, an attorney familiar with how local agencies handle these cases can be worth the call. You can find one through the legal directory.

This article provides general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. KCUR, "Kansas City saw traffic deaths drop by 30% in 2025. Its effort to make roads safer is working," https://www.kcur.org/housing-development-section/2026-01-06/kansas-city-traffic-deaths-2025-vision-zero-road-safety

2. KCUR, "97 people died in car crashes in Kansas City in 2024. The city will keep trying to make roads safer," https://www.kcur.org/housing-development-section/2025-01-01/95-people-died-in-car-crashes-in-kansas-city-in-2024-the-city-will-keep-trying-to-make-roads-safer

3. Missouri Department of Transportation, "Missouri Officials Announce Third Consecutive Year of Declining Traffic Fatalities," https://www.modot.org/node/82588

4. Missouri Department of Transportation, "Missouri Roadway Fatalities Continue to Trend Downward," https://www.modot.org/node/62240

5. KCUR, "Half of Kansas City's traffic deaths happened on these 10 streets," https://www.kcur.org/housing-development-section/2024-07-09/half-of-kansas-citys-traffic-deaths-in-the-last-few-years-happened-on-these-10-streets

6. KCUR, "Kansas City is trying to overhaul Troost Avenue and fix more of its dangerous roads," https://www.kcur.org/news/2025-01-17/kansas-city-dangerous-roads-troost-vision-zero-city-council

7. KCTV5, "SUV hits, kills pedestrian walking along Kansas City roadway," https://www.kctv5.com/2025/11/15/suv-hits-kills-pedestrian-walking-along-kansas-city-roadway/

8. KCUR, "Missouri pedestrian fatalities have risen 22% this year. Does the state need a new strategy?" https://www.kcur.org/housing-development-section/2025-12-09/missouri-pedestrian-deaths-cyclists-roads-driving-fatalities

9. Missouri Department of Transportation, "Number of Vulnerable Roadway User Fatalities," https://www.modot.org/number-vulnerable-roadway-user-fatalities-1c

10. KWCH, "Kansas records lowest number of traffic fatalities in decades in 2024," https://www.kwch.com/2025/01/27/kansas-traffic-fatalities-recorded-its-lowest-number-decades-2024/

11. Johnson County Post, "1 dead following high-speed crash on I-35 near 75th Street," https://johnsoncountypost.com/2025/01/23/i-35-crash-75th-street-251508/

12. Johnson County Post, "1 dead, 2 injured in crash on I-435 in Overland Park," https://johnsoncountypost.com/2024/12/17/1-dead-2-injured-in-crash-on-i-435-in-overland-park-249345/

13. Mid-America Regional Council, "Destination Safe Regional Data," https://marc.org/Transportation/Programs/Destination-Safe/Regional-data

14. KCUR, "After 3 years, Kansas City welcomes the first drivers over the new Buck O'Neil bridge," https://www.kcur.org/news/2024-01-28/after-3-years-kansas-city-welcomes-the-first-drivers-over-the-new-buck-oneil-bridge

15. Missouri Department of Transportation, "Improve I-70 Kansas City," https://www.modot.org/projects/improvei70kc

16. Missouri Department of Transportation, "FIFA World Cup 2026," https://www.modot.org/fifa-world-cup-2026tm

17. KCTV5, "World Cup traffic plan targets Arrowhead neighborhoods: What residents need to do before June 16," https://www.kctv5.com/2026/05/28/world-cup-traffic-plan-targets-arrowhead-neighborhoods-what-residents-need-do-before-june-16/