Overview

Paul Matthews and Martyn Lings from AECOM and the City of Edinburgh Council will provide a talk about Edinburgh ‘Meadows to George Street – Places to People’ project that they are leading (www.meadowstogeorgestreet.info).  This project will be one of the first major building blocks of the Council’s proposed City Centre Transformation which was approved in 2019 which aims to create a vibrant and people-focused capital city centre.

This presentation will cover the proposed large restructuring of the traffic system and streets through the project area which spans the cities historic Old and New Towns within the UNESCO World Heritage Site. This includes pedestrianizing of streets, high quality public realm and place making, creating new safe cycle routes and altering the flow of traffic and public transport throughout these areas.

Designing a scheme of such complexity raises various new challenges. These include careful balance of needs for all users and impacts on wider networks; extensive stakeholder engagement; progressive street/roads design to achieve place and people focused spaces; and a sensitive design approach which balances the historic and cultural value of the area.

This project is built on strong policy and leadership and a significant amount of civil engineering, traffic modelling, urban design and stakeholder engagement involved in this Edinburgh based project, which will all be fully discussed at this event.

Who is this event for?

All with an interest in walking, cycling and place making improvements in Edinburgh and nationally. Also, those interested in the development of complex multi-disciplinary transport projects.

Why should you attend? 

• CPD
• Q&A Session
• Case Studies 
• New Research

Speakers

Paul Matthews

Associate Director, AECOM

Paul is an experienced designer, programme and project manager/director and his career has focused on walking, cycling and place making.  He is interested in creating better places through co-design with local people.  He has led teams of engineers and urban designers to deliver a variety of active travel network and route design projects from inception to delivery.

Martyn Lings 

Senior Project Manager, Active Travel - City of Edinburgh Council

Martyn is a senior project manager in the Active Travel team for the City of Edinburgh Council. Having worked with Sustrans and the Council for 8 years, he has a board range of experience in design and delivery of walking and cycling schemes. He has particular interests in the design of human scaled streets and public spaces.