INTERSTATE HIGHWAY BEAUTIFICATION Partnering with the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) and Keep Cincinnati Beautiful (KCB), the Park Board has established a consistent highway beautification program on the major interstates and state routes through Cincinnati.

KCB provides thousands of daylily and daffodils to plant each fall along the highways. They also recruit hundreds of volunteers to work with Park Board staff to install these flowers along with hundreds of perennials, ornamental grasses, shrubs, and trees provided by the Park Board.

The Daylily and Daffodil program is made possible through generous donations from individuals, corporations, and public funds. Cincinnati Water Works provides us with the means to reach their over 210,000 customers by inserting an envelope in their quarterly billing statements. The envelope asks for just one dollar to help procure the plants. The end result is a welcoming band of color starting in early spring (daffodils) and continuing throughout the summer (daffodils) for those traveling through or within Cincinnati.

The Park Board and KCB partner to lead major volunteer beautification outings in the spring on Great American Cleanup Day and in the fall on Make-A-Difference Day. We always welcome new volunteers as well as those who have served with us since the inception of the program in 1999. Not only do volunteers come away with the feeling that they have served the community, but also with a new knowledge of how to best prepare soil and properly install plants.

Along I-75, you can find Greenspace-maintained areas at the interchanges of Paddock, Mitchell, Hopple, Ezzard Charles, 8th Street, and 5th Street. If you travel on I-71 you will see our landscapes at Dana and at the entrance ramp to southbound I-71 from Montgomery Road in Evanston and the entrance ramp to I-71 South from Reading Road. There are eye-catching landscapes on I-471 coming into Cincinnati from Kentucky and entering I-71 from Reading Road/Liberty. There are colorful traffic triangles on some ramps at 562 at Ridge Road and at Paddock Road.

The staff and volunteers are scheduled to plant shrubs and trees on the Reading and 562 exit ramps for the 2008 Make a Difference Day. Staff and contractors will first remove the invasive honeysuckle and prepare the area to significantly improve the site. Similarly, volunteers will plant cleared areas on Beechmont at Rte. 32 this fall as they did during Spring of 2007 at Beechmont at Columbia Parkway. The Reading/562 and Beechmont sites are areas that Greenspace just started maintaining in 2008.

PARKWAYS AND MAIN ARTERIES Parkways and main arteries are vital “green belts” through the communities of the City that help commuters get from community to community. The Greenspace Program has added its mark to several of these main roadways including sites along Martin Luther King Drive, Victory Parkway, Queen City Avenue/Bypass, Reading Road, Sunset Blvd, Liberty Street, and Columbia Parkway. It is part of our 20-year plan to extend this program to more main road throughout Cincinnati.

COMMUNITY GATEWAYS A number of communities have spruced up key gateways into their communities with landscaping and community signs. Provided with approved funding, Park Board staff has teamed with community volunteers to plant perennial landscapes designed by the staff. The Greenspace Program currently maintains community gateway flowers beds and turf at West Price Hill, South Fairmount, Walnut Hills, East Walnut Hills, Evanston, Mt. Washington, Mt. Auburn, Linwood and the City of Cincinnati (On Columbia Parkway entering from Fairfax).

TRAFFIC ISLANDS AND MEDIANS Though smaller in area than most of the other Greenspaces mentioned, traffic islands and medians are an important break in the asphalt and concrete areas in the city. With well-designed, colorful landscapes, these islands are a nice sight for pedestrians and traffic idling at street lights or driving slowly by in heavy traffic.

In some cases, including on the 5th street entrance into Cincinnati from I-75 and at Reading Central, the former concrete islands were removed and layers of topsoil brought in to convert these islands into green oases.

Other traffic islands include at Paddock/562, Ridge/562, and Madison/Observatory. Beautified median areas include on Martin Luther King Drive, Jefferson Ave, and Clifton Avenue (new in 2008). We are developing plans to enhance the landscaping in these medians in a coordinated effort with the University of Cincinnati.

DOWNTOWN CINCINNATI The Park Board Greenspace Program enjoys designing beautiful, high profile annual and perennials beds in the Downtown area of Cincinnati.

You will see year-round displays on three bridges over Fort Washington way running from 3rd street to Second Street on Race, Vine, and Walnut Streets. A combination of seasonal annuals with shrubs, ornamental grasses and small trees gives the pedestrians and motorist something beautiful to behold throughout the year. The City Garden Fund helps pay for the plants and dedicated staff create the seasonal designs.

In 2007, the Greenspace Program became a contracted by 3CDC to design annual flower beds at Fountain Square at 5th and Walnut and on Vine Street. Staff designs and installs 4 seasonal changes in those planters and maintains the beds regularly.

In 2008, the Program was entrusted to take over the maintenance of the remaining perennial beds on the Square and the trees. Staff redesigned some of the perennial beds to give more full color.

A big marquee event each spring has been the installation of a 7,000 square foot floral carpet on the Square, comprising of 10,000-20,000 pansies, as well as sod and mulch paths to allow the public to interact with the display by walking through it. The display is up for 3 weeks in April and the pansies are given away to the public up dismantling the carpet. Proctor and Gamble sponsors the display.

Other downtown areas beautified by Greenspace include 3rd Street from Main to Broadway, 2nd at Elm, and Pete Rose Way at Broadway.

COMMUNITY BUSINESS DISTRICTS In 2008, Greenspace began a program to help make business districts more attractive by designing annual flower displays in large flower pots along the sidewalks. Staff installs the plants and steadfastly mulch, water, weed, fertilize, deadhead, and replace plants. They also remove litter in and around the pots and keep sidewalk tree cutouts mulched and litter/weed free.

Greenspace staff work with each community business district group to come up with a plan or theme for the annual displays. Business districts served in 2008 include Westwood, Northside, Bond Hill, Roselawn, Pleasant Ridge, Evanston, O’Bryonville, and Mt. Washington.

COLERAIN CONNECTOR Colerain Connector refers to a parcel of land comprising approximately 90 acres extending from Colerain Avenue northeast to Hamilton Avenue, and running parallel to Virginia Avenue. Between 1964 and 1975, private property was purchased by the State of Ohio and the buildings on them were razed for the purpose of constructing an expressway to be known as the Colerain Connector.

Northside residents organized the Coalition Against the Colerain Connector in the 1980’s with the intention of gathering data, considering alternative land uses, and organizing public opposition to the project. They were successful in gaining support from Cincinnati City Council to petition the State to close the project and consider turning the land over to the city.

In 2000, City staff completed a Land Reuse Plan for the Colerain Connector. Northside, College Hill, and Mt Airy residents all participated in the process. The plan calls for in-fill housing and other developments as well as the preservation of greenspace.

In 2003, The Ohio Department of Transportation agreed to give 10 acres of the property (Section C) to the City for greenspace. In 2003, the Park Board applied for, and received a grant for $123,000 for the restoration of Section C. The Connector serves as a vital link in the proposed trail system that will connect Mt Airy Forest with Greeno and LaBoiteaux Woods properties.

INCLINE PARK In Mt. Adams, there is a public tract of land circumscribed by Baum, Monastery, and Kilgour that is no longer developable since I-71 and I-471 were constructed. After houses and buildings that were slipping on the hillside were razed when the highway was built, the land was abandoned and became overgrown and unsightly.

The Park Board partnered with ODOT, the City, and a condo association to build a park on that property. The land was cleaned up, and large perennial landscape beds were installed. Turf was established and benches were placed for people to enjoy the view. The condo association pays a contractor to mow the turf and the Park Board maintains the beds.

Over time, the adjacent area was cleaned out to reveal two levels of stone wall that once served as supports to the old incline tracks that went up the hill to the top of Mt. Adams from downtown Cincinnati. Staff converted it into a terraced series of beds containing trees, shrubs, ornamental grasses and perennials.

This activity has spawned a flurry of condominium development uphill of the park on Baum and further uphill on Oregon. Residents enjoy walking their dogs in the park and having a nice view of the park, downtown Cincinnati, and the Ohio River from their homes.

BEFORE-AFTER The best way to visually show the impact of our program is to demonstrate how each area has dramatically changed through a series of before-and-after photos. This page shows how several areas changed when Greenspace came to the rescue.

VOLUNTEERS The Cincinnati Park Board (CPB) Greenspace program benefits greatly from volunteer efforts to plant flowers, shrubs, ornamental grasses, and trees each year on public green spaces. Volunteers also help with other projects including honeysuckle removal, garden wall construction, mulching, and site cleanup.

Volunteers can also help the Park Board throughout the year when scheduled through our Volunteer Programs. If you are interested in volunteering with the Park Board Greenspace program, you can email the Cincinnati Parks' Volunteer Coordaintor or call Karen Alexander at (513) 861-8970.

Questions about Gateways or Greenspaces in Cincinnati? If you’d like to help in this kind of important endeavor through Cincinnati Parks Adopt-A-Highway program or need more information on habitat improvement, email us or call (513) 861-9070.