What is the Urban Trail? A new means of multimodal transit in Downtown Fort Wayne

In 2018, News-Sentinel reporter Kevin Leininger broke news of an Urban Trail developing in Downtown Fort Wayne. He referred to it as an Oz-like “Yellow Brick Road,” connecting several attractions, including Parkview Field, the riverfront, The Landing, Electric Works, and more.

But since that report, only short segments of the trail have been built (near Promenade Park), and not much public information has been shared, leaving us to wonder: Is the trail still happening? And if so, what’s the state of it?

We met with Stacy Haviland, Landscape Architect and Community Development Administrator at the City of Fort Wayne, to find out. Thankfully, she came to our meeting armed with several maps to prove that the Urban Trail is not only still happening, but also could be a game-changer in how safe and accessible Downtown is for pedestrians and cyclists.

“This trail is one of my nearest and dearest urban design projects, and it’s something I think could make a big difference in Fort Wayne,” Haviland says. “The Urban Trail is a bold step toward reorienting our city around biking and walking and away from the resource-intensive, environmentally damaging suburban development patterns of vehicular traffic.”

So what exactly is the Urban Trail, and how is it making Fort Wayne more accessible? Also, where can you see it today, and where is it going next? We sat down with Haviland to find out.