Fort Washington Way

Fort Washington Way
Interstate 71 / U.S. Route 50
Fort Washington Way highlighted in red
Route information
Maintained by ODOT
Length	0.9 mi[2] (1,400 m)
Existed	June 29, 1961[1]–present
Major junctions
West end	I-71 / I-75 I-75 / US 50
East end	I-71 US 50
Location
Country	United States
State	Ohio
Highway system
Ohio State Highway System Interstate US State Scenic

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]