Fort Washington Way

Interstate 71 marker
U.S. Route 50 marker
Fort Washington Way
Interstate 71 / U.S. Route 50
Map
Fort Washington Way highlighted in red
Route information
Maintained by ODOT
Length0.9 mi[2] (1,400 m)
ExistedJune 29, 1961[1]–present
Major junctions
West end I-71 / I-75
I-75 / US 50
East end I-71
US 50
Location
CountryUnited States
StateOhio
Highway system
  • Ohio State Highway System

Fort Washington Way is an approximately 0.9-mile-long (1.4 km) section of freeway in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. The eight-lane divided highway is a concurrent section of Interstate 71 (I-71) and U.S. Route 50 (US 50) that runs from west to east from an interchange with I-75 at the Brent Spence Bridge to the Lytle Tunnel and Columbia Parkway.[2]

Fort Washington Way is named after Fort Washington, a fort that preceded the establishment of Cincinnati.[1] One of the city's first freeways, it was conceived in 1946 as the Third Street Distributor in conjunction with a major urban renewal project along the riverfront.[3] It opened in 1961 after one of the most expensive road construction projects per mile in the United States.[4] Fort Washington Way's complex system of ramps made it the most crash-prone mile of urban freeway in Ohio. During the late 1990s, it was rebuilt with a simpler, more compact configuration, improving traffic safety and facilitating the riverfront's redevelopment as The Banks.[1]

  1. ^ a b c "History of Riverfront Development". The Banks Public Partnership. Retrieved October 20, 2015.
  2. ^ a b "Hamilton IR 71" (PDF). Straight Line Diagrams. Ohio Department of Transportation Office of Technical Services. January 2002. pp. 1–2. Retrieved October 24, 2015.
  3. ^ Riverfront Redevelopment. City Planning Commission of Cincinnati. November 1946. p. 30. hdl:2027/mdp.39015006720802. Retrieved October 26, 2015 – via HathiTrust Digital Library.
  4. ^ "Penker Nears Completion Of Major Cincinnati Expressway Projects". Modern Highways. Vol. 3. Scranton, Pennsylvania: Scranton Publishing Company. 1959. p. 6.