[cmartel]

There's something called the Idaho stop which is, very simply, allowing cyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs, and red lights as stop signs. Since traffic lights are not meant for cycling at all and often don't make it safer, this alternative has turned out to be quite the safe compromise.

http://bikeleague.org/content/bike-law-university-idaho-stop

That page also mentions other states where a cyclist can go through a red light, usually if it is supposed to be triggered by vehicles and the smaller bicycle can't achieve that.