There are plenty of intersections where a walk signal comes on automatically, why do some intersections require a button push to initiate the walk signal when it doesn’t seem to make a difference in light timing or duration?
In: Engineering
This’ll differ depending on the country and place.
Some buttons are fake.
Some lights don’t give pedestrians any green light unless the button is pushed first.
Sometimes a default cycle is used and the button only decides whether you’re in the cycle or not.
Sometimes the intersection has a full dynamic system that takes into account time of day, weather, traffic, other nearby intersections, and the amount of desperation they see in your face.
Sometimes cyclists have a button but also magnetic ground loops so you don’t really need go press as your bicycle is already registered by the system.
Which of these systems is used in your place of residence and whether pushing the button actually makes a difference is impossible to say for us. Maybe a nice experiment could be to grab a chair, a stopwatch, and try to spot what patterns it follows
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