I admit to being a bit surprised to hear this, as it always just seemed to be common sense that, with the entire intersection shut down, you could freely cross on the diagonal. It's an extraordinarily inefficient use of the space otherwise.

Take, for example, the intersection just north of the posted example, at Church and Elm. Let's say you're standing on the SE corner (by New Alliance/First Niagara/whatever) and trying to get to the NW corner by the courhouse. Traffic is currently flowing north up Church. Once their light turns red, it's a 4 way red light with all walk signs on. As I can't cross diagonally, I cross Church to the SW corner (the Green), but by the time I make it there, there's not enough time left for me to cross Elm towards the courthouse. You'd then have to wait for traffic to stop flowing east on Elm before you could cross again. This strikes me as a little absurd.

I seem to remember something from middle school algebra that dealt with this question. Something about the shortest distance between two points.

Avon - you are correct that it is completely absurd.

As someone posted on the NHI story related to this issue at http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/red_means_stop/ , Washington DC has been testing new diagonal crosswalks in its downtown area:

http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/dc/dc-tests-new-diagonal-pedestrian-crossing-downtown

When can we do this in New Haven?