this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2025
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Asklemmy
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The buttons are intended to be placebo except in some places.
I don't have evidence, but I have heard there are also times of day when it's automated and when it's manual. So you might need to press it at midnight but not during rush hour. Interesting if true.
In my experience it's only automated in the cities and most of the lights are manual everywhere else.
I'm in one of those places. In Utah, many crosswalk lights won't turn on at all unless you press the button, and the button can completely change the light timing and ordering (e.g. a protected left turn light activates at the end of a cycle instead of at the beginning).
Traffic engineers here are sometimes allowed to do some fairly interesting things.
Same goes for most "close door" buttons in elevators btw. ๐