Walking in Waterloo Region

[danbrotherston]

Also, every time I hit these beg buttons I really wish the traffic engineers had the experience of using them and the frustration of standing in the heat, cold or rain while waiting for the signals to cycle back around to your legal time to cross. I think if they experienced this themselves, they would change the system.

Even without the beg buttons, you would still need to stand in the heat, cold or rain (or plain ordinary weather) to wait for the next green cycle, eliminating the buttons would not give you the ability to (legally) cross immediately.

I've said before, but I think advocates in North America focus too much on beg buttons. The Netherlands has them (even for cyclists) and we're held up as the gold standard. The problem is not the beg buttons, but the system which treats pedestrians as second class citizens (and cyclists as dirty communist vermin).

Removing beg buttons wouldn't change that system, but it does remove a symbol of that system. It also removes a tool used to introduce that inequity. It moves towards equal mediocrity, rather than towards equal excellence.

But also, removing beg buttons is a more specific and easier thing to ask for than to "fix society and people's feelings" and so more likely to succeed. FWIW...removing beg buttons does solve the utter inhumanity and radicalization factor of making pedestrians stand and watch a green light complete it's entire cycle, wait the red light, and then, and only then be allowed to proceed. And I do mean radicalization. Sadly, I wish that radicalization led to better outcomes than simply ignoring traffic lights and then being blamed if you are hit.