Faced with a growing number of residents and visitors traversing the city on foot, the City of Sydney is urging the NSW government to introduce a raft of measures that would boost pedestrian access.

Councillors unanimously supported a motion in September that called for action to reduce pedestrian delays and ease congestion on footpaths across the city.

In a letter to NSW Roads Minister Melinda Pavey, lord mayor Clover Moore pushed for the roads authority to install red-light cameras at all intersections across the city's pedestrian-heavy core.

The wait time to cross the road in Sydney's CBD was cut from about two minutes to 90 seconds for cars, bikes and pedestrians in January.

The council wants those 90-second wait times expanded throughout the local government area, with a focus on intersections in city villages such as Glebe and Surry Hills.

Cr Moore also called for countdown timers, which let people know how long they have to cross the road, to be installed at appropriate major intersections and on all new pedestrian signals.

"The City of Sydney's pedestrian counts show that more than 100,000 people walk along George Street near Wynyard each day, and nearly 50,000 walk around Railway Square and along Park Street and Market Street," Cr Moore said in the letter.

"If this many people were travelling by car, the NSW government would be widening roads to keep them moving, yet the needs of people walking are ignored."

Cr Moore said the Sydney City Centre Access Strategy in 2013 had recognised walking as the dominant mode of travel in the city's core, with 1.15 million walking trips each day.

"This is set to grow."

She said crowding problems were "severe" at intersections with traffic signals and long signal cycles caused a substantial build-up of pedestrians.

"The light rail and Sydney Metro will compound existing pedestrian crowding issues, and before long, intersection crowding will become dangerous and unsafe."

A spokesman for Ms Pavey declined to comment, saying the minister's office had not yet received the lord mayor's letter.

There are seven pedestrian countdown timers in Sydney's CBD, with plans for them to be installed at 11 further locations.

Transport for NSW previously said the shorter 90-second wait times had kept pedestrians moving and could potentially reduce the risk of jaywalking and pedestrian crashes.

Pedestrian Council of Australia chairman Harold Scruby emphasised 92 per cent of road users in the centre of Sydney were pedestrians, while only 6 per cent were motorists.

"The motor vehicles control the phasing of traffic lights, so 6 per cent of the road users are controlling the whole movement of the CBD for the 92 per cent."

He called for 30km/h speed zones in the city's core and Broadway, countdown timers so pedestrians knew how long they had to wait, and scramble crossings at major intersections.

Independent councillor Philip Thalis, who is an architect and urban designer, said there was an "underlying bias" against pedestrians, even though they made up the bulk of traffic at city intersections.

He pointed to short walk phases on busy inner city cross-streets such as Bathurst Street and King Street.

"They're called traffic lights for good reason, but they could be called anti-pedestrian signals."

Liberal councillor Craig Chung supported greater pedestrian access in the city's core but said there needed to be provision for taxis and service vehicles in other parts of the central business district.

"I would like to see no service vehicles in the CBD in business hours, but that's in the long-term," he said.