Quote Originally Posted by DeniseGoldberg
I think I remember hearing that the technology does exist to sense cyclists as well as cars (must be something other than a sensor in the pavement that's sensitve to weight, right?) but I've never seen a light change based on the presence of a cyclist. Bummer.
The sensors aren't sensitive to weight, they are sensitive to the presence of metal. I think they try to set the threshold at a level to prevent false positives (from cars in other lanes, for instance) and that's high enough to keep a bike from tripping it. Supposedly, they can configure them to trip for cyclists and not have too many false positives but, like Denise, I've never seen a light change based on the presence of a cyclist so traffic engineers must not be bothering to make the adjustment.

I think the type of metal makes a difference too. I can trip the sensor on the gate to leave my neighborhood with my steel bike but not with my aluminum one.