[dirk digler]

Originally Posted by GloryDayz

They were billing it as a highway that was going to stretch from New Orleans to Canada, so why'd they pick that one part to not make a highway? It seems like a lot of it, heck almost all of it, wasn't a federal highway before this effort (no matter how long it's been in the making), I was just hoping for the people of KC that they could fix that one part of it and get rid of the lights.

According to Wikipedia there is a court order preventing them to change it.

Many neighborhood associations in Kansas City have historically objected to upgrading US-71 to a freeway.^[19] MoDOT has gone on record stating a court order keeps them from removing the stoplights, making conversion of this stretch unlikely.

As for any future upgrade, a MoDOT blog post says "Ample right of way was acquired to someday allow MoDOT to reconstruct the three signal-controlled, at-grade intersections to grade-separated interchanges, allowing traffic on Bruce R. Watkins Drive to flow unimpeded. Neither MoDOT nor the city of Kansas City can initiate this change. It is up to the citizens, who must raise the issue again through the court system to amend the class-action agreement.