Blog Transport

2026-08-245 min readThe Awesome stay guide editorial team

Roughly ten square miles of 25 mph residential streets wrapped around 4 arterials, and nearly every visitor's mistake happens at the seam where those two systems meet.

The short answer: you will drive, and it is not hard

Upper Arlington was platted for cars and it drives like it. The whole city fits inside a rectangle bounded by the Scioto River and Riverside Drive on the west, State Route 315 and the Olentangy corridor on the east, Fifth Avenue and Grandview Heights to the south, and Henderson Road to the north. Four east-west arterials carry the through traffic — Fifth Avenue, Lane Avenue, Fishinger Road and Henderson Road — while Tremont Road, Reed Road, Northwest Boulevard and Kenny Road handle north-south movement. Learn those eight names and you can navigate the city without looking at a phone.

Distances are small in a way that surprises people arriving from bigger metros. Kingsdale to the Ohio State campus edge is about three miles. Tremont Center to downtown Columbus is six to seven miles, or 12 to 18 minutes depending on the hour. Dublin is 20 minutes north, Worthington 15 minutes north-east, John Glenn Columbus International Airport 25 to 35 minutes east. You will spend far more time parking in other cities than you will spend driving in this one.

State Route 315: the spine, and its two rush hours

315 is the expressway that runs along the eastern edge of Upper Arlington, linking Interstate 270 in the north with downtown Columbus in the south, following the Olentangy River valley the whole way. It is the fastest route to almost anywhere: the Ohio State medical campus, the Short North, the Arena District, the convention centre. Interchanges at Henderson Road, North Broadway, Ackerman Road, Lane Avenue and Fifth Avenue give you access to Upper Arlington's northern, middle and southern thirds respectively, and the ramps are short — signal early and commit.

It congests twice a day and once a week. Southbound backs up between roughly 7:15am and 9am, northbound between 4pm and 6:15pm, and the Lane Avenue and Ackerman ramps clog around hospital shift changes. On Ohio State home Saturdays in autumn, treat 315 between Fifth Avenue and North Broadway as unusable for three hours before kickoff and two hours after the final whistle. The parallel escape is Kenny Road or Riverside Drive; both are slower on paper and faster in practice on those days.

Riverside Drive: pretty, fast and full of deer

Riverside Drive traces the Scioto River along the city's western edge, past Griggs Reservoir and the big houses on the bluff, and it is the most enjoyable ordinary drive in the area. It is also the one where visitors get caught out. Speed limits shift between about 35 and 50 mph over short distances, the shoulder disappears in places, and cyclists use it heavily on weekend mornings because it is the only continuous scenic road for miles. Pass wide and late rather than early and close.

Deer are a genuine hazard here, not a picturesque detail. The wooded river corridor holds a large population and they cross at dawn and in the hour after sunset, most often between October and December during the rut. Two practical habits: drop 5 mph below the posted limit through the wooded stretches at dusk, and if one deer crosses, brake and wait, because a second and third are usually behind it. Comprehensive cover on a rental matters more on this road than anywhere else in the county.

The 25 mph grid that isn’t a grid

Inside the arterials, the default residential speed limit is 25 mph and the street pattern is deliberately confusing. Old Arlington, laid out in the 1910s and 1920s, uses curving boulevards — Cambridge, Andover, Arlington Avenue — that loop back on themselves and rarely give you a straight line. Newer sections north of Fishinger are more regular but still full of dead ends and crescents designed to keep through traffic out. Your satnav will occasionally route you through them to save 40 seconds; the neighbours notice, and the four-way stops eat any time you gained.

Two physical quirks are worth knowing. Some older streets have pavements on one side only, or none at all, so pedestrians walk in the carriageway and you should expect them around blind curves. And mature oak and sycamore roots have heaved kerbs and pavement slabs in places, which means cyclists and pushchairs swing into the road without warning. Drive these streets at 20 mph and you will never have a problem; drive them at 30 and you will eventually have a very bad one.

How enforcement actually works here

Upper Arlington has its own police department covering a compact, well-funded city, and traffic enforcement is visible in a way it is not in larger jurisdictions. School zones drop to 20 mph when the lights flash, crossing guards work the main crossings on Tremont, Zollinger, Ridgeview and Fishinger around 7:45am and 2:45pm, and stopping short of a crossing guard's raised sign is not optional. Rolling through a four-way stop on a residential corner is the single most commonly written citation in suburbs like this one.

Ohio-specific rules that visitors from elsewhere miss: right turn on red is legal after a complete stop unless a sign forbids it; you must move over or slow for stopped emergency and service vehicles; and handheld phone use while driving is a primary offence, meaning an officer can stop you for that alone. Seat belts are required in the front and for all under-15s in any seat. Fines and points are set by the courts, so check the current schedule with the Upper Arlington or Franklin County authorities if it matters to you.

Winter, storms and the days not to drive

Central Ohio winters are grey and damp more often than deeply snowy, but January and February deliver several freeze-thaw cycles and a handful of proper snow events. The bridges and elevated sections of 315 over the Olentangy ice before the surface roads do, and the descent from the bluff toward Riverside Drive gets slick. Franklin County uses a three-level snow emergency system: level one means roads are hazardous, level two means only necessary travel, level three means roads are closed to non-emergency vehicles and you can be cited for being out.

The other weather to plan around is spring and summer convection. Between April and July, severe thunderstorms roll in from the west during the late afternoon, occasionally with tornado warnings; outdoor sirens across Franklin County are tested at midday on the first Wednesday of the month, so a siren then is a test and any other time is not. If a warning is issued while you are driving, get off the road and into a solid building — an underpass is the worst possible choice.

Rental car or not: the honest maths

Renting at John Glenn Columbus International runs roughly $45 to $80 a day for a mid-size car in peak months, less in winter, plus fuel typically in the low-to-mid $3 range per gallon in central Ohio at the time of writing — check the pump, not the internet. Because parking is free everywhere in Upper Arlington and at most suburban hotels, the marginal cost of keeping a car here is close to nothing, which is the opposite of the calculation you would make in Chicago or New York.

Skip the car only if your trip is genuinely single-centred: a hospital stay near the medical campus, a campus conference, or a weekend where you intend to eat in Tremont Center and walk the Olentangy Trail. In that case, rideshare covers you at roughly $12 to $22 for the hop between Upper Arlington and campus or Grandview, and $30 to $50 from the airport. Anything involving Dublin, Powell, Hocking Hills or a supermarket shop tips the balance back to renting within a single day.

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