The 3 miles of my commute on bike paths beside roads (as opposed to bike lanes on roads) are the most terrifying part of my ride. You aren't in the driver's immediate field of vision, particularly when they are turning across the bike path. Some cities even require that you walk through any intersections where a bike path crosses a road like that, to increase visibility to drivers.

But as for the lights, Denver has recently decided to lengthen a number of pedestrian crossing times downtown because people apparently walk slower now than they did when the lights were installed. They cited the rate of movement several times when that made the news here...if I have time tomorrow I'll try to see what study they looked at so you can present that as info too.