More money is coming for a bike path linking Uptown to the city’s East Side, Mayor John Cranley announced Jan. 22, enabling the second phase of the trail to move forward.
Cranley held a news conference to announce that the second leg of the Wasson Way Bike Trail will receive $100,000 in private funding from a company called School Outfitters, on top of $500,000 from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, $944,000 in federal grants and $800,000 in proceeds in city revenue from railway tax credits.
Eventually, Wasson Way boosters want the trail to extend 7.6 miles from Newtown, where the Little Miami Trail runs, to Avondale.
The first half-mile phase of the trail is already finished and stretches from near Withrow High School to Madison Road in Hyde Park. The roughly $3 million extension will stretch three-quarters of a mile west via a bridge over I-71 to Montgomery Road.
Cranley also wants to get the trail east to Ault Park in Mount Lookout by the time he leaves office in 2021. He also said he’s aiming to have the second phase done by the end of the year. That will take some work, he admitted.
“Our transportation department believes it will be a miracle to have it completely constructed by the end of the year,” he said during the news conference. “But I am confident we’re going to make it.”
This article appears in Jan 16-23, 2019.
