Transportation & Engineering

The project's goals include the following aesthetic and safety improvements:

• Reconnect Urban Neighborhoods
  • In compliance with Plan Cincinnati, the redesigned Central Parkway should serve to reconnect OTR and the West End communities as well as improve the connection between Downtown and the city’s inner-belt neighborhoods within the basin, the Mill Creek Valley, and the surrounding hills.
• Prioritize Pedestrian Use and Safety
  • TQL Stadium and Music Hall already generate significant pedestrian traffic during events.  And once OTR and the West End neighborhoods become reconnected, general daily pedestrian activity is expected to increase. As such, Central Parkway should be designed to prioritize pedestrian use and safety both daily and during special events.
• Re-establish Central Parkway’s Initial Vision and Development Potential
  • A redesigned Central Parkway should recapture the parkway’s original design intent and vision to not only provide and facilitate an enhanced access experience, but to function as a magnate and anchor for fostering new mixed-use development along its length.
• Design and Construct a Revitalized Complete Street
  • The new Central Parkway must be designed utilizing Complete Street best practices to best serve all users at all times. Central Parkway must function equally well for daily use and for accommodating special events.

The city team will strive to: 

• Employ Complete Street Design Best Practices in the Design Approach, Process, and Execution:
  Embrace the concept that Complete Streets are streets for everyone. Complete Streets is an approach to planning, designing, building, operating, and maintaining streets that enables safe access for all people who need to use them, including pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and transit riders of all ages and abilities.

• Re-envision the Right-Of-Way Section:
  Consider the width, make-up, and function of the existing right-of-way and working within this width, determine how the right-of-way section may be re-envisioned, repurposed, redesigned, and reconstructed to better facilitate all street aspirational functions.

• Re-Establish and Strengthen Connections:
  Investigate strategies and develop concepts for reconnecting OTR to the West End that work both daily and during special events, as well as to improve and strengthen the connection between Downtown to the south and the communities along the route of Central Parkway.\

• Placemaking – Connection Opportunities:
  Seize the opportunity to create places and enhance the environmental experience for gatherings where connections are made.  Identify and define places through the introduction of architectural elements and landscaping.  Add layers of enhancement through the introduction of Environmental Graphic Design elements such as wayfinding and interpretive story making.

Following is the project's tentative schedule:

Please note: The city's transportation planners expect the traffic impact for motorists to be minimal. Through vehicular traffic will be allowed at all times. Vehicular and pedestrian access to all properties and all adjacent events will continue to be allowed.

The city's construction management staff will be on site at all times during construction and will coordinate construction activity with abutting property owners, businesses and operators, and residents as needed. 

The project extends approximately one-half mile north of Cincinnati’s Downtown Central Business District, along Central Parkway from Plum Street to Liberty Street, outlined in red on the map below.  This stretch of Central Parkway separates the neighborhoods of Over-The-Rhine (OTR) and the West End.

The dates for public meetings will be posted on this web page once scheduled. Meetings are expected to take place in late summer summer/fall. Please check back for updates.

All public outreach and community engagement will comply with the Ohio Department of Transportation policy standards for the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

Anticipated Public/Private Partnership Funding Sources: 

• Local private funding grants for design and construction
• City of Cincinnati funding for project design, management and administration services
• Federal transportation construction grants
• City of Cincinnati local match funding for construction

We encourage your input and comments about the project and welcome any questions.

Please reach out to:

Jeffrey W. Stine
Principal Architect and Project Manager
City of Cincinnati Department of Transportation & Engineering
City Hall
Room 450
801 Plum Street, Room 450
Cincinnati, Ohio 45202
(513) 352-2567
jeff.stine@cincinnati-oh.gov