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2010 — today
Fort Wayne counts its trail users with machines, and the counts are the most exact numbers in this record. The City has run infrared trail counters since 2010 — fourteen locations in the system's earlier years — and publishes the tallies with Fort Wayne Trails and NIRCC. The records came in steps: in the summer of 2016 the counters set an all-time monthly high of 73,226 users in June, followed by 66,858 in July against 44,729 in July 2015, and a third quarter of 188,711 walkers, joggers and cyclists, about 24,000 above the previous third-quarter high; October 2020 set its own month's record at 58,752, in the pandemic year when use surged across the system; June 2021 counted 89,712 users, 18 percent above prior years. The annual totals followed the counters as the counter network grew: 724,807 uses counted in 2022 (Fort Wayne Trails), and in 2024, with 22 counters spread across the 148-mile Allen County network, the count passed seven figures for the first time — 1,032,077 uses, announced 22 January 2025. Single places carry their own numbers: the Salomon Farm Loop averages 407 users a day in summer, the City states, among the heaviest use in the network.
What the network connects to, beyond itself, is a shorter list than its boosters' maps sometimes imply. North and south, the Poka-Bache Connector is genuinely joining the Fort Wayne system to Angola and Bluffton, segment by segment (above). The connection that does not exist is the famous one to the south: the Cardinal Greenway, Indiana's longest rail-trail at about 61 miles from Richmond through Muncie to Marion and Converse, is a separate system, and no trail joins it to Fort Wayne — its northern end at Marion lies roughly fifty miles from Fort Wayne, a distance the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy measures by the drive to Fort Wayne International Airport. Regional plans treat the two systems as future partners, and the United Trails effort works toward an eleven-county web, but as of this writing a rider cannot travel from the Rivergreenway to the Cardinal Greenway on trail. The current state of the city's development — the network as a going concern, its newest projects and its place in the city's present economy — is carried in Fort Wayne Today, which this entry cross-references rather than repeats.
Sources: Fort Wayne Trails, "2024 Trail Counts Hit One Million!" (22 Jan 2025) — "In 2024, the 22 infrared trail counters distributed across the 148-mile Allen County trail network counted 1,032,077 uses"; the counting partnership of Fort Wayne Trails, the City and NIRCC. Fort Wayne Trails, 2024 Sponsorship Packet — "724,807 trail uses counted in 2022." City of Fort Wayne news release, "Embracing Our Trails" (18 Aug 2016) — June 2016 all-time monthly high 73,226; July 2016, 66,858 against 44,729 in July 2015; counters managed since 2005 by Ritchie; the Greenways program's start in Parks and Recreation. Fort Wayne Magazine / fortwayne.com, "Hit those trails" — third-quarter record 188,711; September record 65,744; "the city has used infrared counters at 14 different locations along the trails since 2010." The Waynedale News, "Trails Record High Use" (20 Nov 2020) — October 2020 record 58,752 against October 2016's 54,187; 14 infrared counters. AroundFortWayne (9 Jul 2021) — June 2021 counts of 89,712, "18% higher than in previous years." City of Fort Wayne — Salomon Farm Loop, 407 users per summer day. TrailLink and Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, Cardinal Greenway — 61–62 miles, Richmond–Muncie–Marion (Converse), an 11.3-mile Gaston–Jonesboro gap of its own; RTC: Fort Wayne International Airport "about 50 miles from the trail's northern end in Marion." No source reached documents a trail connection between the Fort Wayne network and the Cardinal Greenway.