On the way to work, I have walk across several intersections. These are all controlled by timed, “walk, don’t walk” signals. Anyone who has lived in a modern society has seen these things. With the law of averages, sometimes you’ll arrive at a cross walk just at the right moment so you don’t have to wait, sometimes you’ll have to wait just a few seconds, and sometimes you’ll have to wait the whole cycle of the light. Normally, it’s extremely rare that you’ll always time it right so you never wait or you time it so that you’ll always be waiting the longest time. I have, however, discovered the worst cross walk for my luck.
If you’re crossing Nelson Street along Mainland be prepared to witness the most frustrating cross walk. I come upon this cross walk every day as I go to work in the morning. In the five months or so that I’ve been walking to work, I believe that 99% of the time I get to the cross walk just as the “hand” finishes flashing and becomes solid. That means every morning, I have to wait the maximum amount of time possible before I can cross. Even if I tried, I don’t think I could pull this off. Every morning I keep thinking this is the morning where my timing will be random enough that I’ll arrive at the cross walk in a different part of the light cycle. Every morning I’m wrong. No matter how fast or slow I walk or if I change my pace (speed up or slow down), I always manage to time it so that there’s just not enough time for me to cross and I’m stuck waiting the theoretical maximum time.
There must be a scientific explanation for this but I’m currently too tired to think of a hypothesis. All I know is that it’s a daily source of frustration I face every morning.