Have TfL been meddling with traffic light phasing in central London
recently, to the advantage of vehicles/bikes and the disadvantage of
pedestrians?

My perception, as an admittedly rather impatient pedestrian, is that
the wait at Ludgate Circus/Farringdon Street for the five seconds of
pedestrian time has expanded well beyond the minute it always was.

Meanwhile, this evening I noted that at New Change/Cannon Street you
wait a minute to get half way across, then another thirty seconds to
complete your crossing, where I'm sure previously you could get across
without traffic flow in one go.

And don't get me started on Victoria, where heading from the station
up to Victoria Street, pedestrians encounter one red after another,
funnelled into narrow channels between the building work.

I'm going to guess that whilst planners establish a cost of congestion
for vehicle users stuck in traffic, no such cost is established for
pedestrians stuck at lights waiting for traffic. Of course, there are
far more pedestrians on the streets of London than car/bus users, so
some sort of priority would appear to be in order, like more Zebra
crossing where vehicles have to wait until the pedestrian flow has
stopped.

Chris