17/06/2026
And we won!! 😲🏆🎉
Our new Glencoe Greenway has won the ✨Excellence in Walking, Public Realm and Cycling Award✨ at the Scottish Transport Awards 2026.
This was one of the top awards at the Oscars of Scotland's transport sector, recognising excellence, ambition, innovation and collaboration in active travel 🚴♀️🏃♀️🤸♀️👩🦽
While it was great to pick up our trophy with the Greenway's main funders, Walk Wheel Cycle Trust Scotland, at a glitzy event in Glasgow, it was equally nice to bring it home and share this award with the team on a sunny afternoon in the Glen 🏞️🙌
We are really proud of the Greenway for so many reasons:
✅ It gives safe pedestrian access to a stretch of the Glen which could only be reached by walking or cycling on the narrow trunk road verge before.
✅ Less than a year since fully opening, this 5km track is blending nicely into its surroundings as the vegetation grows back around it's edges. It looks like it could have been here for decades 🌼
✅ It completes the Glencoe Orbital Trail, a lovely 10km route to and from Glencoe village, a community aspiration for many years.
✅ We found a creative way to cross the A82, without having a road level crossing, using the existing culvert under the road and over the Allt Leac na Muidhe river (no easy feat!) 💦
✅ Local enterprises like Rugged Coast Glencoe and Woodlands Glencoe are benefiting from the chance to hire bikes and e-bikes to visitors, helping reduce parking congestion in the heart of the Glen.
✅ More than 4,000 people used the Greenway in May 2026 - 30,000 in the last 12 months - reducing hazardous verge walking and road cycling on the same stretch of A82 to almost zero👌
We hope this is just the start for the Glencoe Greenway - we would like to see a traffic-free path extend the National Cycle Network all the way to Glencoe Mountain Resort (9 miles)...
Pedestrian access through Glen Coe is exceptionally poor, considering it is one of Scotland's busiest tourist destinations, home to one of the Highlands' busiest roads (over 2 million vehicles a year) and a National Nature Reserve, all with renowned road safety and traffic congestion issues 😔
Investment here is a win-win for the environment, sustainable tourism and everyone who uses the A82 for work or leisure 🌈
So, our next aim is to progress with the 2.5 mile stretch from where the Greenway currently finishes, near Loch Tryachatan, to the popular Three Sisters 🏔️🏔️🏔️
This would involve:
➡️ Widening 1.5 miles of existing narrow path on the edge of the trunk road (not a pleasant walk or cycle)
➡️ Improving the surface of 1 mile of the existing old military road through the lower glen, which is currently very bumpy and would be challenging for most bikes, pushchairs or wheelchairs.
➡️ This is a very, very special natural and historic landscape, and we want to keep it that way, so sensitive design and landscaping will be key to making it work 🌿
Beyond the Three Sisters, any extension of the Greenway further east would be more complex and the most obvious routes would mostly be off our land, but Transport Scotland has had agreement from all relevant landowners to survey and assess the options, and a feasible route has been found 👍📐👍
Alongside improved pedestrian access, the idea of a hop-on, hop-off shuttle bus through the glen is often suggested to us as a way to make it easier and more attractive to access the glen without a car, helping to reduce parking pressure 🚌🚌🚌
We completely agree!
The 400 space car park at the ski centre could be a ready-made park & ride hub in the summer when the glen is busy, but the ski centre is less so 🚗🅿️🚗
The Greenway and a shuttle bus would go hand-in-hand, enabling people to head into the hills from each bus stop, or wander safely from one place to the next, without having to drive from one parking area to the next like now 💚
So, how do all these grand ideas get funded? 🤔
There are a few public grant options that we feel a nationally significant project like this, in one of Scotland's most iconic glens, should be worthy of:
👉 The Active Travel Infrastructure Fund which The Highland Council or Hitrans can apply for.
👉 The National Cycle Network Development Fund managed by Walk, Wheel, Cycle Trust.
👉 The Bus Infrastructure Fund, which Highland Council can apply for.
We are at an early stage of working with partners to scope out options. We just hope this award helps us gain support and keep up momentum 🤘😊
Sorry for a long post! Let us know your thoughts and watch this space for progress...
National Trust for Scotland ~ Discover Glencoe, Scotland ~ Walkhighlands ~ Scotland's National Nature Reserves
