The city of Cincinnati is gearing up for the next phase of the Wasson Way project.
Cincinnati Council's Budget and Finance Committee Monday will consider a resolution related to acquiring property needed to extend the 4.3-mile bike and walking path from its current end at Blair Court in Avondale to Reading Road and Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive in the heart of Uptown.
Cincinnati Department of Transportation and Engineering's Elese Daniel says the one-mile addition is a vital connection to Uptown that will open up new options for people commuting to their jobs, exercising or striking out from their home in Avondale for a longer adventure.
"We're connecting infrastructure," she said. "We have this MLK shared use path we're connecting into, and the Wasson Way connects all these other places."
The route is slightly amended from its original design. From the Blair Court segment, which opened in December 2023, the extension will follow old railroad right-of-way to Fredonia Avenue, where it turns left onto Whittier Avenue. That will run right into Reading Road.
There's a significant hill on part of the route now, but engineers are designing the path so it will be accessible to people with mobility issues.
"It's removing a big chunk of the hill," Daniel says.
Besides the extension, there are only a couple of short connecting pieces around Xavier University needed to complete the project.
the bicycle and walking infrastructure advocacy group, Tristate Trails, has said Wasson Way's Avondale extensions are important pieces in its CROWN plan. That's a network of bicycle and walking trails that would stretch 34 miles and connect a number of Cincinnati neighborhoods in the Mill Creek Valley, the city's West Side, along the riverfront and in other areas.
Wasson Way currently starts at Old Red Bank Road near Ault Park, though a connector is in the works that will eventually tie it in more easily with the Little Miami Trail. That trail is part of a network that runs all the way to Cleveland.
Daniel says she's used Wasson Way and Little Miami to get all the way up to Yellow Springs. That's something she wants more people in the city to be able to utilize.
"I took all local trail infrastructure," she says of her recent trip. "It felt amazing to ride through multiple cities essentially on the trail from my own city proper. I just love to see us continuing to connect the infrastructure that already exists in places where people are using it."
Construction of Phase 8 is expected to start in July 2026 and wrap up at the end of 2027.
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