In 2022, funding from Places for Everyone and the City Region Deal supported two transport corridors: City Centre to Forth Valley College and Stirling Station to the university. These routes enable multi-modal journeys, connecting communities like Raploch and the university to Stirling Station. The project includes 6.5km of active travel infrastructure with segregated cycle lanes, traffic calming, and cycle street treatments, along with 170 newly planted trees to enhance the environment.

Who is on the project team? (designer, consultants, etc)

Ironside Farrar

Places for Everyone 

Sustrans

Stirling Council

Hillhouse Group

Describe the context of this project and its neighbourhood and the community it serves?

The project delivers two transport corridors: the City Centre to Forth Valley College Route and the Stirling Station to University Route. Both routes create safe, attractive active travel routes starting from Stirling train station through the centre of Stirling to educational centres. The routes are aligned with key trip generators for locals, including schools and shops, and make the most of Stirling’s heritage, with connections to Stirling Castle and Stirling Old Bridge. Walk, Cycle, Live, Stirling has improved direct links to rail and bus transport hubs for locals and tourists. Walk, Cycle, Live Stirling provides 6.5km of active travel infrastructure, consisting of segregated cycle lanes, Cycle Street treatments, and traffic calming measures. 

Tell us what you did and how it was designed and delivered.

Working closely with Exterior Architecture, Civic Engineers led the redesign of Kingsway and the junctions at either end, to make it a more connected, community enabling, experience focussed and bio-diverse place. Civic Engineers carried out baseline and proposed development assessments, policy reviews, junction modelling and data analysis, and in-depth community engagement and consultation to feed into an agreed vision for Kingsway. Breaking the vision down to specific objectives, linked to design interventions, showed how policies and funding objectives would be achieved in Stretford. It was important the scheme fulfilled local and national policy objectives, including Greater Manchester’s Streets for All Strategy and LTN 1/20, as well as meeting stakeholder requirements, such as retaining the high level of bus service to the Stretford Mall frontage and the taxi rank. Civic Engineers had an ongoing dialogue with TfGM, Trafford Council Highways and other parties to ensure that it knits seamlessly with Trafford Council and Bruntwood’s Stretford Mall redevelopment. 

What is the social and environmental impact of the project?

Each route provides safe and attractive active travel connections to major trip generators for locals (including Wallace High School, Forth Valley College, & University of Stirling) popular tourist destinations (Wallace Bridge, Stirling Castle). Connecting residential areas to schools and the city centre was key for encouraging modal shift. Where possible Cycle by Design standards were adhered to, to ensure that the routes could accommodate non-standard bikes along with mobility aids. A local group, Bikes Without Barriers, used the College Route for the Walking and Cycling Index photos. (works still developing a connection from where they are based at The Peak to WCLS.) This project encourages multi-modal journeys through its connection to the significant improvements at Stirling Train Station for the communities of Raploch and the universities, to routes through the centre of Stirling onward, via upgrades to its bus connections. This boosts health incomes, affordable transport options, and reductions in car journeys. Alongside reductions in transport emissions, climate resilient planting to achieve net-biodiversity gain was integrated. A mixture of native plant species and blend of culturally and environmentally appropriate were incorporated to provide year round interest and increase local bio-diversity. Additionally 170 trees were planted along the scheme.