Study to assess pedestrian circulation in city neighbourhood
Highway viaduct images during and after construction:
Specifically focusing on access to the train station, and in view of major new development of a highway viaduct to be built over the train station and surrounding streets. My work involved extensive site visits, map research and analysis and community consultations. The report describes the problems in circulation in the area as it was existing, and also future projections for after the highway viaduct development. The study considers transportation in the wider area of the whole city and future developments in the coming years, such as the athlete village and sports stadia for the Commonwealth Games just 3km away. The report describes the problems in the current layout, and gives 8 key recommended improvements. Following the publication of this report my company was awarded the job to take one of the 8 recommendations to the next level and complete building it. For client continuity I was responsible for the design, which is introduced here on this blog.
This area is receiving much regeneration interest, close to the future site of the Commonwealth Games, but with problems in transport connections, toxicity in the ground in ex industrial sites adjacent to the main river passing through the city, many derelict buildings and a depressed local economy. Being within 3km from the administrative and commercial centre of Scotland’s largest city the neighbourhood is strategically well located as well as in urgent need of regeneration investment. However, the main driver for this planning project was the planned construction of a large highway viaduct through the neighbourhood, dramatically changing the layout and character of the neighbourhood.
This large viaduct is an enormous piece of innovative engineering, with large spans (bridges) over rivers and in particular over this neighbourhood centre. With the highway viaduct passing directly over the top of the train station and nearby streets, this massive change to the community centre required careful planning, to guide a smooth transition and also to adapt the neighbourhood positively to the new configuration. At only 8min train ride to the city centre, the same journey by car or by bus on congested roads takes significantly more time; this train station is of high importance for the community.
In addition to a city-wide appraisal of public transport networks in relation to this area, we took our focus to the local level, studying the important routes taken on foot between destinations in adjacent neighbourhoods. Then we focussed our attention on all possible access routes to the station, including the 3 entrances, all of which were unwelcoming, potentially dangerous and attracted antisocial behaviour. In the published report we identified the challenges and issues and we provided a number of recommendations, tabled in order of importance, with cost-to-benefit ratios and “artist’s impression” images for each recommendation to show how we would build each option.
gillespies.co.uk
