... to green for every direction at once and a great mass of people starts to flood the entire intersection, straight as well as diagonally. It's a spectacle that you don't get tired watching...just like waves rolling onto the beach. There are the first keen people dripping onto the road just while - or sometimes even before - the last car is comming to a halt. Then, the hundreds of people that have accumulated on the sidewalks start to follow. They stream across the street facing the people from the other side rushing towards them. When the masses meet in the middle, merging, the streams seem to lose their direction and the individuals move randomly on. While the observing eye is still searching for a pattern in the surging crowd the first people reach the other side and fade away. I sit at the window of my elevated outlook at the Starbucks popular with spectators and watch the intersection emptying while the pedestrian lights have long turned red. The last unhurried walkers will have to watch out for the first cars beginning to reconquer the streets without mercy until the cycle repeats.
