Guides ·Essentials

Orient yourself first: rivers, boulevards and two centres

Upper Arlington sits west of the Olentangy River and east of the Scioto, with State Route 315 running along the eastern edge and Riverside Drive tracing the Scioto and Griggs Reservoir on the west. The spine is Tremont Road, running north to south. The main cross streets, from south to north, are Fifth Avenue, Northwest Boulevard, Lane Avenue, Zollinger Road, Henderson Road and Fishinger Road. Kenny Road and Reed Road handle north-south traffic on either side of Tremont.

Two commercial nodes anchor daily life. Tremont Center, at Tremont and Zollinger, is the older one: The Goodie Shop bakery, Huffman's Market, the Old Bag of Nails Pub, small storefronts and a free surface lot. Kingsdale, off Northwest Boulevard near Tremont, is the bigger one, built around a Giant Eagle Market District with the main Upper Arlington Public Library and city offices on Tremont Road just north. Fix those two points in your head and the rest of the street grid resolves itself quickly.

Driving and parking: easy, free, and slower than you think at 5 pm

Almost every visitor drives, and the city is built for it. Parking is free and abundant at Tremont Center, Kingsdale, the Lane Avenue Shopping Center and every park lot. There are no parking meters in the residential interior. Rental cars from John Glenn Columbus International run roughly $45 to $80 a day depending on season, and gas prices in Franklin County have generally sat in the $3 range per gallon in recent years.

The friction points are predictable. Lane Avenue between Olentangy River Road and North Star Road crawls on weekday evenings. Fifth Avenue and Northwest Boulevard back up around the Grandview line. Riverside Drive is fast, scenic and full of deer at dusk. On Ohio State home Saturdays, eastern neighborhood streets shift to permit-only parking and the SR 315 ramps at Lane Avenue and Ackerman Road jam solid. Speed limits in residential Upper Arlington are enforced seriously, and 25 mph means 25 mph.

COTA buses: useful on the edges, not in the middle

COTA is Columbus's bus network. A local single ride is $2.00, a day pass $4.50, a seven-day pass around $18 and a 31-day pass around $62; you can pay by app, by card at some stops, or with exact change on board. Service touches Upper Arlington along its perimeter corridors — Lane Avenue, Fifth Avenue, Northwest Boulevard and the Olentangy River Road side — connecting to Ohio State, Grandview and downtown, where the free CBUS circulator loops High Street between the Short North and the Brewery District.

What COTA does not do well is the residential interior. There is no frequent route down Tremont Road linking Kingsdale to Fishinger, and headways on suburban routes can run 30 to 60 minutes, with thinner evening and Sunday service. Use the bus to get from a Lane Avenue hotel to campus, the Short North or downtown, where it beats parking costs outright. Do not plan a park-hopping day around it. Check the COTA app for live times before you leave, because a missed suburban bus is a long wait.

Walking and cycling: the best way to see Old Arlington

The southern neighborhoods are the walking prize. From Mallway Park on Arlington Avenue you can loop Cambridge Boulevard, Roxbury Road, Andover Road and Guilford Road through the Old Arlington Historic District in about an hour, passing the 1920s Tudor and Colonial Revival houses that put the district on the National Register of Historic Places. Sidewalks are continuous, the street trees are mature, and the loop passes Miller Park Library. Northam Park on Tremont Road adds tennis courts, ballfields and shade.

For cycling, the Olentangy Trail is the regional asset: a paved multi-use path running along the Olentangy River from downtown north through campus toward Worthington, reachable from the eastern edge of Upper Arlington. CoGo Bike Share docks cluster around campus, Grandview and downtown rather than inside Upper Arlington, with day passes around $10. Riverside Drive has scenic riding along Griggs Reservoir but carries fast traffic and no protected lane, so choose it only if you are a confident road cyclist.

Rideshare, taxis and the airport

Uber and Lyft are the practical fallback. Trips inside Upper Arlington run about $10 to $16, Upper Arlington to the Short North about $18 to $28, and Upper Arlington to John Glenn Columbus International about $30 to $45 depending on surge. Wait times are usually under ten minutes on the Lane Avenue side and a little longer in the northern residential streets. Traditional taxis exist but are not worth chasing.

The airport sits roughly 13 miles east of Upper Arlington, about 20 to 30 minutes via SR 315 and I-670. There is no rail into Columbus at all — it is the largest US city without Amtrak service — so intercity travel means buses from downtown: Greyhound and Barons Bus from the Town Street terminal, and GoBus for Cincinnati, Cleveland, Athens and Toledo, with fares often in the $20 to $45 range if booked ahead. Budget 25 minutes to get downtown from Upper Arlington for any departure.

A realistic transport plan by trip type

Two-night visit with a campus or hospital focus: skip the car, stay on West Lane Avenue, walk to Whole Foods and Tommy's Pizza, use rideshare for the two or three trips into Upper Arlington proper. You will spend $40 to $70 total on rides and beat the daily rental plus insurance. A week with children: rent the car, take the free parking at every park, and treat the outer belt as your gateway to Dublin, Worthington and Delaware County.

Mixed trip: rent a car for three days of the week and use COTA and rideshare on the days you are downtown, where garages cost $12 to $25 a day. If you are staying in an Old Arlington short-term rental, confirm driveway parking in the listing, because on-street overnight rules vary and enforcement on football Saturdays is real. One more note: everything worth doing here is within a fifteen-minute drive, so plan by cluster rather than by clock.

Frequently asked questions

What people ask before they set off on this one.

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