Citation

Patterson F. Road Transp. Res. 2010; 19(2): 4-19.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, Australian Road Research Board)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The 'technical bible' for traffic engineers, the Austroads series Guide to Traffic Engineering Practice, has recently been replaced by three new Austroads guides: Guide to Road Design, Guide to Road Safety and Guide to Traffic Management. The new guidelines covering roundabouts now incorporate designs for the marking of bicycle lanes in roundabouts, representing a change in technique to one not seen in comparable international guidelines. This paper examines the international research on bicycle lanes in roundabouts and considers whether the issues raised in the literature are applicable to Australia. It concludes that although overseas experience cannot be directly translated to Australia, the safety benefit of Australian cycle lane practice is clearly questionable. Good practice should be for any cycle measures to be well-designed and tailored to a particular roundabout, as part of a 'toolbox' of measures; but the new Austroads guides mean that it is more likely that cycle lanes will be the first (and quite possibly only) cycle measure considered. If so, this may well be at the cost of other, more effective measures (such as the C-roundabout design) that could also benefit other road users.

Language: en