There was a study done a few years ago to narrow the width of the lanes on MLK so that the median could be widened and so that a proper bike path could be added alongside. I have no idea what happened to this proposal, but it seems like it might be a good first step.

In an ideal world, we'd take out most of MLK and re-build the street grid so that the west side wasn't as isolated from downtown, but that's a pipe dream until we get a much better public transit system.