Originally Posted by Bekologist
Sometimes, there's very little cross traffic, while a sole bicyclist stands at the intersection of a minor street and an arterial, waiting endlessly for the signal to change. Screw that.
I don't even think my approach is legal in WA.
It is one (but a minor one) of the reasons I avoid minor streets vs. aterials, they are so much slower with many stop signs and traffic lights that take forever to cross arterials. Even if I wanted to break the law and run a red light across an arterial during 6am-11pm hours, I couldn't safely as arterial traffic density and speed is high enough that there are so rarely gaps in traffic long enough to cross 7-lanes of traffic. In the summer waiting at a minor street to cross an arterial can be brutal to wait 2min in 117F with no movement induced breeze.
What is even worse is crossing an arterial without a traffic control. Several years ago I used to ride the bike paths on canals and they don't have a light to cross. I once waited for >6min looking for a gap and gave up and rode up the sidewalk 1/4mi the wrong way to the nearest traffic light to cross. I stopped doing this as I hated wroing way sidewalk riding.
Al