You lost me at the "at this point you don't know how long it's been red." Are there people in the crosswalk? Is anyone waiting to cross the same direction I'm going? What is cross traffic doing-- is it through traffic, or are the turn lanes active? I can tell from a few hundred yards out if I'm going to have to stop or not.
I then adjust speed accordingly. I'm coasting unless the turn lanes for my street are active, or the intersection doesn't have dedicated turn arrows. Then it's just knowing what lights favor what streets.
We have right-on-red here, so I try to stay out of that lane as much as possible. A full intersection is much easier to read than an empty one-- sometimes the sensors pick me up, sometimes they don't.
But I have ridden 60+ miles in urban sprawl, passing through 100+ intersections, and had to put a foot down just 2-3 times. As I'm crossing one intersection, I'm reading the next one.
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