Robert M. Gary wrote:
I just flew my Mooney up to Vancouver (this is somewhat aviation
related). When I got there I noticed that sometimes the traffic lights
were just green and other times they were flashing green. I asked many
locals what the difference was and none of them knew. Some thought it
was related to the crosswalks but I noted no cooreleation between an
intersection having a crosswalk or having someone pushing the walk
button and the flashing. Perhaps I'm just being a nerdy engineer but
I'm really curious if anyone in Canada knows what this means.

-Robert
After reading the many previous posts, it is obvious that the flashing
green doesn't have a definitive answer. The flashing green system
really doesn't help if everyone thinks it means something different.

Back when I took drivers-ed in the 60's, the book referenced "old"
traffic lights that only had a green and a red. A flashing green was
used to indicate the meaning of the modern yellow light. This was in
the US, not Canada. I never saw this system in the US, but maybe Canada
implemented the same system and never got rid of it.