Kaw Valley Soccer Assn. members, still mourning the death of one of their leaders in a traffic accident last week, are turning their energies to ensuring that soccer players and their families have a safe route to a soccer complex in southwest Lawrence.

“During our August meeting we actually talked about how dangerous the intersection was and how it will probably take someone dying for something to be done about it,” said Sam Pierron, the association’s president.

About 7 a.m. Saturday, soccer board member Steven R. Zinn was killed when he was struck by a car at the intersection of the South Lawrence Trafficway and 27th Street, which leads into the Youth Sports Inc. complex. Zinn was on his way to the complex to help out with the Kansas Cup Tournament.

A family from Manhattan, trying to find the soccer fields, was in the car that struck Zinn, Pierron said.

The KVSA board is soliciting opinions from its members and parents of the youths who play soccer about how to make the intersection safer. It is a subject they have talked about with Lawrence city officials as well as the Kansas Department of Transportation, said board member Garrit de Boer.

The intersection has a stoplight, but it requires drivers on the trafficway to slow down from 65 mph.

“People driving by at 65 to 70 mph is scary enough, then when somebody misjudges the traffic light, you have a disaster like the one we just had,” de Boer said.

A “futuristic plan” that addresses several changes in that area and would allow the expansion of the soccer field area calls for building an overpass at the intersection, but that would have to be primarily a state project, and there is no money for it, de Boer said.

The soccer association is urging people to contact city officials and express their concerns about the intersection.

City officials are aware of the problem and have scheduled a meeting with KDOT officials for Wednesday, Mayor Mike Rundle said.

“We need to do something,” Rundle said. “It’s only going to get worse as more and more traffic picks up.”

Zinn had been involved with the soccer association for several years and also coached for a while, members said. Zinn was a well-known Kansas appellate defender who had worked on death-penalty cases.

The soccer association is collecting for a memorial fund to help pay for Zinn’s children’s education. A donation box will be set up from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at the referee shack at YSI.

Zinn’s funeral is at 10:30 a.m. today at Plymouth Congregational Church, 925 Vt.