Countdown Crossings are great aren't they? They tell you how much time remains before the traffic starts, enabling you decide whether there's still time to get across or whether it'd be better to wait. The first few arrived in London in 2010 with a more general rollout since 2015 so now there are hundreds across the capital. Brilliant.
This one's outside Aldgate East station where Commercial Street meets Whitechapel High Street, and it's perfectly normal. After the green man vanishes the numbers tick down to zero, the red man appears and two seconds later the traffic lights change.
I've timed several countdown crossings and it always seems to be a two second gap
Except here.
This one's further up the same road outside the Blind Beggar pub, at the junction where Whitechapel Road morphs into Mile End Road. This is a complicated crossroads with filter lanes and advance lights for cyclists, entirely overhauled in 2015 so that a segregated cycle superhighway could pass through. For pedestrians each arm requires two staggered crossings, one for traffic arriving and one for traffic departing, with countdown timers in each case. And the countdown timer at the foot of Cambridge Heath Road is staggeringly premature, hitting zero twenty seconds early rather than two.
A typical two minute sequence goes like this. Traffic on Cambridge Heath Road is stopped by a red light and the green man appears for pedestrians. It stays green for almost a minute while traffic passes on the main road, then the timer kicks in and counts down from 08 to 00. But when the countdown stops and the red man appears, the waiting traffic remains resolutely where it is. It remains at a halt for twenty further seconds, during which time pedestrians could be crossing but see a red man displayed instead. And only after those twenty seconds does the advance cycle light trigger, followed by the main traffic lights, and then the whole sequence goes round again.
The twenty extra seconds are interesting to watch, and frustrating to experience. Many pedestrians arriving at the start of the red man sequence wait patiently on the kerb expecting the traffic to kick off, then when it doesn't move they step out across the road anyway. The longer they wait, the more likely they are to tire of waiting pointlessly and hurry across the street. When an automated system is plainly lying it's human nature to think you can beat the game by crossing anyway. But this means there are frequently pedestrians in the road when the traffic starts up again - eeek! - because the countdown which should have warned them terminated twenty seconds early instead.
I've watched this sequence cycle round several times and I remain baffled as to why the timer begins early. The offending crossing is the one I've coloured red on the diagram, and traffic movements during the twenty second gap are shown by green arrows. No car, bike or other vehicle crosses the crossing during this phase, everything waits patiently at a red light instead. Pedestrians could safely cross for twenty extra seconds because nothing's coming to get them, but they're never offered the opportunity so they endanger themselves because the light is obviously lying.
It's even worse here.
This is the crossroads further up the same road near Mile End Station. It too was massively re-engineered in 2015 to incorporate segregated cycle lanes and various filters along with a general rephasing of the lights. Again pedestrians are expected to wait unnecessarily because the countdown kicks off early, but this time the wait is longer and on more than one arm of the crossroads. This is very poor.
I'm regularly caught out by these lights at the foot of Grove Road. After the timer ticks down to zero it looks like you have to wait to cross but in fact there are still thirty seconds remaining. Thirty seconds is ridiculous and regularly encourages people to step out and cross anyway... initially perfectly safely and eventually not. I've learned to watch the lights as I approach, and if the red man's been showing for less than 20 seconds by the time I arrive I know it's OK to step off the kerb. I don't risk it on 25 because a car might smite me down before I reach the other side, but before that I know I can ignore the premature red man and be on my way a minute earlier.
The countdown timer at the top of Burdett Road also kicks in thirty seconds too early, and during exactly the same phase of the lights. This is while westbound traffic is emerging from Mile End Road, which cannot possibly interact with pedestrians crossing exits from a perpendicular road, but pedestrians are still expected to wait for ages anyway. They don't all wait, the astute ones swiftly cross, while the unknowing wait unnecessarily for up to half a minute. I've noticed that the countdown timer also kicks in prematurely on the junction's inbound western arm but this time by 20 seconds. The corresponding eastbound crossing, however, has the normal two second gap before traffic starts to move, and basically I don't understand what's going on here at all.
I'd like to think TfL's engineers know what they're doing, because it's usually better to assume professionals acted deliberately rather than getting things wrong. But having experienced these junctions over several months (and watched the cycle proceed several times yesterday) I don't understand why pedestrians are being asked to wait 20 or 30 seconds longer than necessary when no vehicle is coming to hit them. It can't be to make sure they're off the crossing in time because everywhere else the normal gap is two seconds, even at whoppingly wide crossings (like opposite Whitechapel station). Here it just means pedestrians are putting themselves in danger, repeatedly, daily, because those faced by an obvious lie soon learn to ignore the lights.
Countdown crossings are brilliant, and the one near you probably is, but they're far less good when zero kicks in much too early.
