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Comment by bmsleight_ | Hacker News Reader

From an UK perspective, their crossing are way to wide. If you have a shorter crossing, the crossing is less of a factor, (also shorter total cycle times).

The problem, is that you holding up all the other traffic for one pedestrians. Get the crossing length correct, have the elderly person cross at the start of the green then the time is sufficient.

Also changing the timing as one junction intermittently makes the coordination between set of traffic signals harder and can be big disbelief.

Notwithstanding, the wide junctions allow more space for cyclists.

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Considerably easier to do this than rebuild the cities with narrower streets, though. If only you could do cement with a responsive layout...

You can split the crossing, so that the pedestrian does not have to cross the Northbound and Southbound at the same time.

We have that here but not everywhere.

There is a stop at the median (which would require median) for 4+ lanes. U have to push the button again in the middle.

Also have some that activate the whole crosswalk, but u can stop at middle of u think u don't have enough time, can push button for the remainder of trip

What I hate more than slow people, fast people and people on bicycles.

I cringe each time someone decides to run across when everyone is already focused on the people already walking at normal pace to exit the crosswalk.

Super dangerous.

I have clipped a guy on a bicycle(just bumped rear tire, hardly any damage and cyclist was fine), and almost hit 2 kids and adult ( all different instances)

Countdown helps. Traffic Signals in London, an amber numerical countdown display, indicating to pedestrians the time remaining to cross the road. This discourages pedestrians and cyclists to start to cross.

Unfortunately, it also encourages drivers to gun it when there's only a few seconds left on the countdown ("I still have seconds to get through the intersection!") - which increases the number of cars running red lights.

The countdown is only shown when the pedestrian crossing is on green. Drivers don't get a countdown on their green signal. Most also have a plastic shield around the countdown so you can't see it from where the driver is sitting to avoid people preempting the signal change.

This works on crosswalk-style crossings, but not on 4-way intersections.

Incorrect, It is used in London on thousands of junctions, hundred of 4-way intersections.

Ideally you would just have a zebra crossing. Making pedestrians wait is a pretty terrible solution.

Zebra or horrible in terms of accident statistics. (Roughly an extra 2-3 serious per year more than traffic lights) Multiple Zebras crossing/Junctions can not be co-ordinated for either pedestrians or traffic. There are only a very few situations were Zebras are better.

Also drivers can get very aggressive with a slow moving pedestrian at a Zebra.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra_crossing

Our neighbours on the continent don't always prioritise motor traffic above everything else.

Making people on foot wait twice to cross a road is very car-centric.

Exactly, just rebuild the entire city.

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