Edinburgh turning disused areas into public green spaces
Published on: Friday, February 03, 2023
By:
ETX Daily Up, FMT
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What a section of Edinburgh’s future ‘green corridor’ might look like. © The City of Edinburgh Council
The Scottish capital’s city council has announced the start of work on its brand new “green corridor,” a project aiming to transform public spaces along a route between the Roseburn neighbourhood and the Union Canal.
The idea is not only to create a bicycle path, but also to provide the public with numerous spaces dedicated to leisure or to the development of community gardens.
The goal of the project is to transform the entire area, currently disused and largely inaccessible, into pleasant and usable community green space and to promote biodiversity.
Improvements include two new bridges over the railway line, community gardens and upgrades to a sports field and playground. As part of the project, more than 5,000 trees will be planted.
All this new space will evidently be reserved for soft mobility only. All along the route, a four-metre-wide pedestrian and bicycle path will allow people to get around safely on foot, by bicycle or in a wheelchair.
The work, which has just begun, is not expected to be completed before April 2024.
This project echoes the approach taken in recent years by major cities such as New York, Milan and Paris, of reserving certain streets and squares for pedestrians and cyclists only, to the detriment of vehicle traffic.
