Its a 2 stage on paper and sign, however I've never waited in the middle to cross the road of a VIVA ROW. Whoever did that video is just trying to be a smartass. Its like people who drive EXACTLY at 60 nothing more....
COMMON sense prevails ladies and gentlemen. Then again, because this road has a platform in the middle its extra wide, who knows, there are slow walkers around.....
To be clear, I made the video and my intent was not to be a "smartass", I was demonstrating what happens when you obey the law. If I used that signal regularly, I would start walking as soon as the conflicting traffic signals went red, getting to the middle just as it changed to Walk. But walking on a Don't Walk indication is illegal, so it is absolutely unacceptable to design anything on the assumption that people will do so. This is also true with your example of speeding. The City knows full well that people will driver faster than speed limit when conditions allow. But if the speed limit is 60 km/h the signals will be coordinated for 60 km/h or less. Because doing otherwise would be encouraging law-breaking behaviour.
If COMMON sense is to break the law, then something is wrong either with the design or with the law. In this case it is both. This particular design should display Walk for the entire time it is safe to start crossing, not just a few seconds of it, and it shouldn't be illegal to enter an intersection during Flashing Don't Walk if you can get to the other side before the end of the countdown.
Additionally, as I mentioned in that post, this particular intersection is worse than the typical Highway 7 setup because the median is exactly in the middle of the road, making the two crosswalks of equal length. At most other intersections, the median is the bus platform, so it's to one side of the bus lanes. Flashing Don't Walk durations will always timed for the larger of the two crosswalks, so the more off-centre the median, the longer the Flashing Don't Walk.
I have some experience with the Highway 7 East 'two-stage' crossings and like you I am able to make it across in one go because I walk fast. Although I do enter the second half of the crossing during Flashing Don't Walk, which is technically illegal. But at this particular intersection due to the aforementioned shorter maximum crosswalk length, not even my fast walking speed could get me across in one go, if I started at the start of Walk.
Here's some COMMON sense calculations:
The signal gave me 7 seconds of Walk and 16 seconds of Flashing Don't Walk. That's 23 seconds.
Standard perception-reaction time used in traffic engineering is 2 seconds. So once a person starts moving, there are 21 seconds left.
To cross 43 metres in 21 seconds is 2.03 m/s, or 7.3 km/h. That is a
very brisk pace. (In comparison the design walk speed for traffic signals is 1.2 m/s). And that's allowing for entering the second crossing during Flashing Don't Walk, which is illegal.
To
legally cross the entire road in one go, you'd need to enter the second half of the crossing before the start of the Flashing Don't Walk. So you need to cross 23 metres in 5 seconds, which is 4.6 m/s, or 16.6 km/h. That's not a walking speed, that's a running speed. Don't run across the road.
