State: | KS |
Turner Diagonal | |
Maint: | WyCo Unified Government |
Map Custom: | yes |
Map Notes: | Turner Diagonal highlighted in red |
Length Mi: | 3 |
Length Ref: | [1] |
Direction A: | West |
Terminus A: | State Avenue in Kansas City, KS |
Direction B: | East |
Terminus B: | in Kansas City, KS |
Counties: | Wyandotte |
The Turner Diagonal (map) is a short freeway in Kansas City, Kansas. It runs from Kansas Avenue northwest to State Avenue. It does not have a single numbered designation, though the entire route was formerly signed as US 40 west of I-70, K-132 east of I-70 and is currently signed as K-32 from Kansas Avenue to its first interchange.
It is named "Turner Diagonal" because it runs diagonally and because it runs into and out of the Turner neighborhood in Kansas City. It provides a convenient shortcut to I-635, bypassing the stoplights on State Avenue and Parallel Parkway. The speed limit is 55mi/h for the entire length of the freeway. The freeway was formerly known as K-132.
Since 2020, due to low traffic use, some interchanges of the Turner Diagonal have been downgraded to at-grade junctions.[2] [3]
K-132 was a highway commissioned in the 1960s to connect Kansas City, KS to its Turner and Argentine neighborhoods. Its western terminus was originally at K-32, but was extended to terminate at I-70 in the late 1970s when the U.S. Route 40 alignment shifted to overlap I-70 after leaving the Turner Diagonal. Its eastern terminus at U.S. Route 69 (18th Street Expressway) in industrial Kansas City, KS.
It was turned back to the city of Kansas City in 1993, since all of the highway lay within the city limits. It was resigned as a realignment of K-32 east of Kaw Drive to US-69, while the controlled access portion west of Kaw Drive to I-70 remains unsigned. The state still maintains the roadway by repainting/replacing old exit signs; it has not maintained nor resurfaced this old segment of K-132 since 1993.
It is now simply known as "Turner Diagonal". The 0.25miles portion of this expressway from I-70 west to US-24 was signed as US-40 until 2009. US-40 used to leave its concurrency with US-24, head east on the Turner Diagonal before overlapping I-70.