Taylor, Laura E.Hays, Scott2019-03-202019-03-202018Major Paper, Master of Environmental Studies, Faculty of Environmental Studies, York Universityhttp://hdl.handle.net/10315/36024This paper argues that an integrated approach to bike sharing program implementation can yield considerably higher benefits than bike sharing operations in isolation, and can improve transit systems and urban design alike. This paper draws from literature on the Sustainable Transportation paradigm, New Urbanism and Smart Growth to argue that a transit-integrated regional approach to bike sharing can greatly contribute to a seamless regional transit system, while yielding significant benefits to local urban design and mobility as well. Such an approach can significantly enhance transit’s competitiveness against the automobile, enabling transit-oriented designs of Urban Growth Centres that mitigate autocentric suburban sprawl. Employing this approach to GO Transit’s upcoming Regional Express Rail (RER) and the Urban Growth Centres of the GGH can facilitate the complete communities desired in the Provincial Growth Plan to advance the GGH’s polycentric urban network. The incorporation of bike sharing systems (BSSs) into regional transportation planning approaches provides the link that connects the regional with the local just as it connects the user from their door to the transit station. To realize its full potential in multimodal chains, bike sharing requires a high level of integration with the anchoring transit system in order to make it convenient and competitive against the personal automobile. Simultaneously, a regional transit system that targets Urban Growth Centres to integrate bike sharing at the local level helps to facilitate Smart Growth goals, complete communities, New Urbanist design; and enhances the scope of transit-oriented development (TOD). Effective BSStransit integration requires both transit fare and station integration, and is strongly compatible with newly emerging mobility as a service (MaaS) systems for seamlessness. A coordinated package of cycling infrastructure and BSSs can significantly increase cycling rates, contribute to station integration, and improve the cycling-transit interface generally. This package is also a crucial element to local design contributions, where it is argued BSSs should be considered as a fundamental design element to Urban Growth Centres in order to facilitate New Urbanist design and improved TOD.enPlanning--Urban transportation--Bicycle sharing programsMajor paper