Beyond Traditional TOD: Integrating Multiuse Paths and Bike Share into Public Transit to Address the First/Last Mile Issue

Abstract

Transit-oriented development (TOD) has been promoted worldwide as an integrated land-use and transportation strategy to foster urban sustainability. Bike share provides people with a convenient and relatively affordable way to enlarge the spatial scale of TODs across urban communities, as a solution to the first/last mile (FLM) issue with respect to the transit nodes of TODs. Even though barriers to FLM have been frequently studied, few studies incorporate people’s perceptions of their barriers and/or the integration of multiuse paths (MUPs) into the network of bike share and public transit. Using a survey conducted in the Greater Cincinnati area, Ohio, this study aimed to answer the following questions: (1) What are people's major barriers to integrating different green transportation modes and/or facilities (bike share, MUPs, public transit)? (2) To what extent does the built environment around people’s residential location affect their integration level of MUPs, bike share, and public transit? (3) Which improvements would most likely encourage people to integrate them more often? With descriptive statistics, spatial analysis, and statistical comparison, we found that (1) the major barrier to integrating MUPs into the green transportation system was their lack of connection and availability to transit and bike share; (2) a person’s living environment is spatially related to whether a person integrates bike share; and (3) more respondents would use MUPs more often if an integrated green transportation system could be provided or improved. These findings suggest the potential of incorporating MUPs and bike share into TOD strategies to address the FLM issue.