The Borough Council of Venray had chosen a special design for its roundabout at the intersection Oostsingel with Stationsstraat. The cycle paths outside the roundabout are squared and not circular. The roundabout is within a built-up area and cyclists have right-of-way.
This design differs from the one recommended by CROW advisors; they had advised, for urban areas, a circular cycle path at at least five metres from the roundabout. Because Venray wanted to build more roundabouts with squared cycle paths, a study of the safety aspects was recommended. This study was carried out in the autumn of 1998 by SWOV and VIA traffic advisors.
Various observation techniques were used.
Right-of-way observations, concentrating on behaviour between cars and cyclists, were carried out at the roundabout mentioned as well as two comparable ones in (the towns of) Roermond and Naaldwijk. These had been built mor-or-less according to the recommendations.
Conflict observations were also carried out at the Venray roundabout, and the results compared with previous observations at four other roundabouts.
The results of the observations show that the differences with other roundabouts are not great; sometimes the squared cycle paths at Venray appear to be better, and sometimes the circular variant. However, it is not always clear to what extent the observed differences are a result of the shape or of the extra attention road-signs at the Venray variant.
Furthermore, it appeared that the tight curves on the Venray cycle paths were sometimes slightly dangerous for the cyclists, especially when cycling next to each other.
It was demonstrated that the squared shape, in which the cyclists' crossover path is close to the roundabout proper, had a slightly negative influence on the roundabout's capacity.
Because the roundabout studied is not demonstrably safer, and taking into account the desired uniformity, it is recommended not to use this shape.