Today, more than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas, which is expected to increase to more than 68% by 2050 [1]. In Australia, 86% of the population lives in urban areas, with 40% living in Sydney and Melbourne. Transportation planning in today’s congested cities is critical as it defines the dynamics of people’s movement [2]. Bicycling as an alternative mode of transport has gained attention in transportation studies due to increasing congestion and vehicle traffic in cities [3]. Bicycling is a physical activity that can promote public health and environmental sustainability, leading to significant economic benefits [4]. To achieve these benefits, many countries, including Australia, are planning to increase bicycling to create more sustainable urban transportation [5]. Countries have considered infrastructure programs and policies to increase bicycling. Some of the efforts look to provide bicycling infrastructures, such as bicycling tracks [6], bicycle racks on public transit systems, and bicycle traffic signals [7,8,9], or consider programs like bike share schemes [10] or car-free zones [11], and policies like city bike systems (in the city of Lublin) [12].

To increase the number of bike riders in Australia and, more specifically, in the Greater Sydney Area (GSA), several strategies have been developed. According to the Inner Sydney Regional Bicycle Network report, in the Sydney region, one of Australia’s largest cities, the economic cost-benefit ratio of investing in the bicycle infrastructure development is estimated to be 3.88$, with a net economic benefit of $500 million a year [13]. The Committee for Sydney cycling report stated that Sydney needs more programs and funding to make Sydney a more bicycling-friendly city. To encourage more riders, there is a need for a well-connected and safe bicycling infrastructure [14]. More recently, the Movement and Place framework has considered a place-based approach for planning and designing transport networks and includes guidelines and toolkits to support bicycling planning [15]. In response to COVID-19, a few strategies were implemented to address the new demand for a better network for bicycling, such as new pop-up cycleways around the city [16,17]. Despite all efforts, in Australia, the level of bicycling is about 1%. Similarly, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), in the GSA, only 1.1% of trips are made by bicycle [18]. This level of modal share for bicycling is lower than in many countries around the world, such as the Netherlands (27%) and Denmark (16%) [19,20,21]. One of the main reasons for the insignificant number of bike trips is that there is more emphasis on motorized modes of transportation. As a result, vehicle traffic takes more consideration in street designs, and therefore, bicycling is a marginalized mode of transport [22]. Furthermore, there are challenges in the collaboration of different agencies in the planning process on a government and local scale. Planning and, more specifically, bicycling planning traditionally occur in a series of long and short-term plans proposed by different governmental agencies. This process has caused problems and issues in the coordination and sequencing of urban projects [23]. Therefore, bicycling planning, as part of the city and metropolitan planning, can be considered a significant problem with high complexity and impacts on different systems that change and constantly evolve [24]. To overcome this, there is a need to engage different stakeholders and experts in the decision-making process to explore their views and consider new strategies for improving planning for bicycling [23,25].

Applying the geo-design approach can overcome challenges in coordinating critical urban projects by supporting collaborative and integrative planning. Geo-design is a collaborative planning process that changes the geography with design, by developing and applying a collaborative design process [26]. Geo-design can improve traditional environmental design and planning practices by using modern communication, computing, and collaboration technologies. This approach allows for analysis of the impact of design scenarios by the simulation to integrate theoretical and societal knowledge into the practice of designing alternative futures [27]. With the geo-design framework, barriers to creating single strategic planning by different stakeholders can be broken down using data-driven approaches [23].

2. Literature Review