‘I would hate to see someone dead’: Dangerous Northland ditch prompts city repairs
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - A deep ditch in the Northland is creating close-calls for drivers and one homeowner has asked the city to fix it.
“It becomes a dramatic experience when we hear something out front and a lot of times people are able to recover and get off, but more and more they’re not able,” said resident Kevin Townsend, “so we’ve had two wrecks in the last week.”
Townsend says his home, located along North Brighton Avenue, has a front seat to the destruction the ditch has caused over the past year. He says he has reported the hazard to the city nearly 50 times since October 2023 after a salt truck overturned into his yard.
Since then, Townsend said the ditch has only gotten deeper and the wrecks have continued.
“We’ve had, I know of, at least a dozen wrecks. I catch them on my security camera, people coming off the road and they can’t recover. It’s just a dangerous situation,” said Townsend.
Security footage from Townsend’s home shows cars swerving and, in one heart-stopping moment, jumping across the large gap beside the road. He says drivers often lose control when driving uphill and end up veering too far to the right of the road into the ditch.
“There’s not much forgiveness,” Townsend said. “No street lights, and big trucks going through. It seems to always happen at night.”
He’s witnessed two wrecks just this past week alone and said dozens of reports to the city have fallen on deaf ears. On Wednesday morning, a few hours after KCTV5 ed the city, public works crews arrived on site to patch the ditch.
Townsend says the city’s response was long overdue.
“I would just hate to see someone dead because of something that could have been fixed,” he said.
A spokesperson for Kansas City Public Works confirmed Wednesday’s roadwork was a temporary fix with more long-term repairs to the ditch line scheduled in the coming weeks. People can request road repairs through 311 and the myKCMO app.
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