The shortest route loses. Where traffic lights ration passage across streets, a city walk becomes a contest between metres travelled and seconds surrendered at the kerb, so the route that looks wasteful on a map can deliver the earlier arrival. Distance tells half. The rest belongs to signals, whose schedules can charge a pedestrian more time than an extra block would require.
Detours can pay dividends. Consider a hypothetical walk of 600 metres at 75 metres per minute, which takes eight minutes before four minutes of accumulated crossing delays lift the total to twelve. Now add 150 metres. At the same pace, that longer route requires ten minutes of walking, but with only one minute spent waiting, its eleven-minute total beats the apparent shortcut. The arithmetic is unforgiving. Extra distance wins only when the added walking time is smaller than the waiting time avoided; fewer crossings alone do not guarantee that result.
Timing beats intersection counts. A signal cycle is the repeating sequence of indications, while phase offset describes how one signal's timing is displaced relative to another's, helping determine whether successive arrivals meet permission to cross or another wait. Arrival changes the bill. Because walking speed, departure time and pedestrian requests can alter those encounters, yesterday's winning detour may lose today, even when neither pavement nor distance has changed. Maps need a clock. At the corner, the shorter street remains perfectly visible, waiting behind a red light.
