Walking in Waterloo Region

[MidTowner]

It doesn’t make much sense to call an inductive loop a “beg button for cars.” It’s entirely passive from the point-of-view of the motorist: stop at the stop line, and the system will detect your vehicle and accommodate you. People on foot are, at many intersections, expected to perform an action. The action is fairly trivial (just pressing a button), but might not be in all cases- when someone is pushing a stroller, handling bags, not to mention if someone happens to be visually impaired or have some other kind of disability.

And then there’s the situation, which we’ve talked about, where someone arrives a second too late to press the beg button before the light turns. He’s then expected to wait another cycle to cross legally. So he won’t, he’ll simply jaywalk, which isn’t what anyone wants.