A year of construction is about to start on Mt. Vernon Avenue. The City of Columbus broke ground Wednesday on a $7 million project that rebuilds the street through King-Lincoln Bronzeville, and the change drivers and riders will notice first is a bike lane with a concrete barrier between it and traffic.
The work will run from Hamilton Avenue to Champion Avenue. The city is building new sidewalks and bus islands at transit stops, plus curb extensions that shorten the walk across the street. The roadway will also be resurfaced, with new markings. The goal is slower driving speeds on Mt. Vernon adding up to more safety.
Where the $7 million comes from
The city put in Vision Zero bond dollars, and that commitment pulled in $3.5 million in grants. Part of the grant money is Highway Safety Improvement Program funding. Part is Safe Routes to School funding, which pays for sidewalks students can use walking to Champion Middle School.
“This Mt. Vernon Avenue improvements project is one example of how residents’ city income tax dollars are invested in our neighborhoods through my capital budget projects,” Mayor Andrew J. Ginther said in the city’s announcement.
Preliminary testing
Early in the design phase the city tried a quick-build version at Mt. Vernon and Champion: all-way stop signs, striped parking lanes and marked curb extensions. The city’s before-and-after data shows crashes at that intersection down 91 percent, and right-angle crashes, the type that happened most often there, down 94 percent. No fatal crash has happened at the intersection since the signs went in. Those interim fixes will become permanent during construction.
The scope of the work came out of the Bronzeville/Mt. Vernon Avenue Mobility and Safety Action Plan. The city wrote that plan with Bronzeville Moves, a coalition of residents, the Near East Area Commission, community and faith groups, and businesses along the corridor.
What’s still open
The city’s project page shows a schedule with construction happening between summer 2026 and summer 2027 and prices the construction phase at $7.1 million. That page also places the segment more precisely than the announcement does: Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard from Hamilton Avenue to St. Clair Avenue, then Mount Vernon Avenue from St. Clair Avenue to Champion Avenue.
