If you've driven Wynnton Road or cut through Bradley Drive this summer and wondered why there are stakes in the ground and equipment parked along the shoulder, here's what's happening: Columbus broke ground on May 15, 2026, on the first physical piece of a trail network whose master plan the city adopted back in 2016, and that Midtown residents have reportedly been asking for safer, car-free access to for years. Crews started moving dirt in early June. By the time you read this, the work has been underway for about three months.
What's easy to miss, if you're only half following the news, is what this first phase actually does and doesn't do. It's called the Dinglewood Park Trail, and it's officially labeled Phase I of the Midtown Connector in the city's own bid documents. It will not touch the Chattahoochee Riverwalk. It will not touch the Fall Line Trace, the 10.5-mile trail that already runs through Flat Rock Park up toward the northern edge of the city. Those connections are Phase II and Phase III, and both are still in design. What Phase I does is close a much smaller, much older gap: the fact that a resident living between Wynnton Road and Warren Williams Road has had no safe way to walk or bike to Dinglewood Park, Lakebottom Park, the Columbus Museum, or Columbus High School without crossing streets that weren't built with pedestrians in mind.
What's actually going in the ground
The route is specific. It starts at 10th Avenue and Wynnton Road, right where the existing MLK Jr. Trail currently dead-ends, and runs east along Wynnton Road, north on Bradley Drive, east on Warren Williams Road, and through Dinglewood Park itself to the intersection of 18th Avenue and 13th Street. The whole segment covers about 4,956 linear feet, a little under a mile, built as a 10-foot-wide concrete path rather than the narrower asphalt used on some of the older Dragonfly segments.
Four intersections along that path are getting upgraded crossings: Wynnton Road, Bradley Drive, 13th Street, and 18th Avenue. The Dinglewood Park lot is also getting additional ADA-accessible parking spaces. None of that is glamorous, but if you've ever tried to cross Wynnton Road on foot with a stroller or a bike, you know exactly why it matters.
| Intersection | What's changing |
|---|---|
| Wynnton Road | Trail crossing added at the western end, tying into the existing MLK Jr. Trail terminus |
| Bradley Drive | Upgraded pedestrian crossing along the trail's northward turn |
| 13th Street | Improved crossing near Dinglewood Park's 13th Street frontage |
| 18th Avenue | Upgraded crossing at the trail's eastern endpoint |
The project carries a price tag of $2.2 million. Dragonfly Trails Inc., the nonprofit that has driven much of the network's expansion, put more than $150,000 of its own money into design, engineering, and permitting before construction even went out to bid, and separately secured a $200,000 Recreational Trails Program grant through the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, which required a $200,000 local match. The rest draws on the city's SPLOST and TSPLOST sales tax funds, the same local option taxes that pay for a lot of Columbus's road and infrastructure work. Dragonfly Trails executive director Becca Zajac told local reporters that barring weather delays, construction should take about a year, which points to an opening sometime in 2027.
The mile that doesn't reach the river
Here's the part that's easy to overstate if you only read the headline. Columbus already has 34 miles of connected trail under the Dragonfly Trails name, drawing more than 500,000 users a year, and that network already links Downtown, Fort Moore, and North Columbus. The Riverwalk, one of its most-used stretches, has made Columbus one of the League of American Bicyclists' recognized Bicycle Friendly Communities. None of that reach ever extended into Midtown.
The Dinglewood Park Trail is designed to fix that, but only partway. Zajac has called it the first step in creating an east-west connection through Midtown, and she's been direct about what it fills:
"The Dinglewood Park Trail fills one of midtown's most significant safety and connectivity gaps, giving residents a protected way to reach parks, schools, restaurants and other destinations."
What she's describing is an internal Midtown loop, not a river connection. To actually reach the Fall Line Trace or the Riverwalk from this new trail, Midtown still needs Phase II, which will extend the Midtown Connector across Lakebottom Park, and Phase III, which will run along Cherokee Avenue to meet the Fall Line Trace. As of the most recent reporting, both of those phases are in design, with no construction bid issued yet. Zajac has described the finished three-phase project as a future "major spine" of the whole Dragonfly network. Right now, it's one limb of that spine, and the limb that matters most for daily errands rather than weekend rides.
MidTown Inc. executive director Julio Portillo put the safety gap in plainer terms when he told reporters why this stretch mattered first:
"There are certain areas where we see some folks riding their bikes where it just doesn't seem safe."
What's already sitting there, waiting for the connection
Part of why this particular mile got picked first is that the destinations it links were already there, just disconnected from each other by streets without real crossings. Dinglewood Park sits at 1660 13th Street, right next to the MidTown Children's Bicycle Playground, which opened in March 2026. Portillo has said MidTown Inc. chose that location specifically because of its proximity to the Dragonfly Trails, so kids could build bike skills close to a trail network they'd eventually be able to use to get to school or the park on their own.
Beyond the playground, the corridor runs past or near:
- Lakebottom Park, one of Midtown's most-used green spaces
- The Columbus Museum
- Columbus High School
- The Villages on 13th, a residential development along the route
None of this is new. What's new is a protected way to walk or bike between these places instead of driving or dodging traffic on foot.
The three phases, in order
It helps to see the whole plan laid out rather than piecing it together from separate reports.
- Phase I, Dinglewood Park Trail. Groundbreaking held May 15, 2026. Construction underway since early June 2026. Runs from 10th Avenue and Wynnton Road through Dinglewood Park to 18th Avenue and 13th Street. Expected completion in 2027.
- Phase II, Lakebottom Park extension. Still in design as of the most recent public reporting. Will extend the Midtown Connector across Lakebottom Park.
- Phase III, Cherokee Avenue connector. Also in design. Will run along Cherokee Avenue to link up with the Fall Line Trace, which is what finally ties Midtown into the Riverwalk and the rest of the 34-mile Dragonfly network.
There's no public timeline yet for when Phases II and III go out to bid, so anyone picturing a straight bike ride from Midtown to the river this year or next is planning around a phase that hasn't started construction.
What this means if you live here now
If your daily walk or your kid's bike route runs anywhere near Wynnton Road, Bradley Drive, Warren Williams Road, or the Dinglewood Park lot, expect construction activity there for roughly the next year. The bike playground at Dinglewood Park is already open and usable today, even while the connecting trail around it is still being built. If your actual destination is the Riverwalk or the Fall Line Trace, the fastest way to get there from Midtown remains what it's always been. That changes only when Phases II and III break ground, and there's nothing on the public record yet indicating when that will happen.
Columbus Mayor Skip Henderson, at the groundbreaking, framed the broader project less as recreation and more as basic access, saying the trails "are going to get the neighborhoods connected with some of the retail stores and the restaurants" while also giving people who'd rather not drive another way to get around. That's a fair description of what Phase I delivers on its own. The bigger promise, tying Midtown into the river system that's made Columbus's trail network genuinely nationally recognized, is still two phases away.
For anyone tracking how Midtown Columbus keeps changing block by block, our Columbus neighborhood guide follows these kinds of local shifts as they happen, not just the ones that show up in a market report six months later. And if you're a longtime Midtown resident who's ever wondered what a project like this actually does to your own property's daily convenience, Ron Jones is always happy to talk through what local changes like this tend to mean over time. Reach out anytime if you'd like to compare notes on what's happening in your part of the neighborhood.
