Pedestrian Signal Timing Calculator

The Walk Interval only needs to give pedestrians enough time to notice the signal and step off the curb, which takes roughly the same few seconds regardless of how wide the street is — the actual time needed to cross scales with distance is handled entirely by the separate Flashing Don't Walk clearance interval. Both the MUTCD (Section 4I.06) and PROWAG (Section R306.2) set a 7-second minimum for the Walk Interval precisely because it's a reaction-and-start allowance, not a crossing-time allowance.

Your entered walking speed and the slower 3.0 ft/s speed used for the ADA-oriented calculation often differ, and the slower figure specifically accounts for pedestrians with mobility limitations who need more time to complete a crossing safely — the MUTCD (Section 4I.06) directs engineers to use a walking speed below its 3.5 ft/s default wherever slower pedestrians or wheelchair users routinely use the crossing, and PROWAG (Section R306.2) likewise requires clearance timing to assume 3.5 ft/s or less. Showing both lets you see the standard MUTCD-default clearance alongside the typically longer, more conservative ADA-oriented clearance, which is generally the one that should actually govern signal design absent a documented site-specific exception.

Median Width only comes into play when a refuge island actually exists in the crosswalk, since it changes the calculation to a two-stage crossing where pedestrians can pause safely partway across. Without a refuge island selected, there's nowhere for a pedestrian to safely stop mid-crossing, so the calculator ignores median width entirely and uses the full curb-to-curb crossing distance instead.

It's flagged as recommended whenever peak-hour pedestrian volume exceeds 50 per hour, since higher pedestrian traffic combined with vehicles turning across the crosswalk is exactly the conflict scenario an LPI is designed to reduce. Giving pedestrians a several-second head start before the parallel vehicle phase turns green establishes their presence in the crosswalk, making them more visible to turning drivers before those vehicles start moving.