[danielf]

Originally Posted by Rob

There seems to be an increasing trend for pedestrian crossings to no longer be Pelican, i.e. flashing amber, but instead to have a complete cycle of everyone waiting going nowhere when the average pedestrian has long since crossed and is already 20 yards down the road I can't see any real benefit to safety, and it certainly isn't green as we all sit longer with our engines running.

One thing to keep in mind is that the timing for traffic lights needs to consider the slowest pedestrians. It may well be that your average 20 year old is 20 yards down the road by the time the signal changes, but that time may just be sufficient to cross the road for a 70 year old. Traffic lights can't sense how long it'll take people to cross the road (yet), so you need to presume they will be slow.