What is Digg?132 Comments
- girlsdiggittoo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+114in my city, grand rapids, michigan, the buttons work. but they don't help the light change any more quickly. instead, if you push it, a little walk signal will light up when it's time to cross, rather than just the hand stop signal.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+39i remember testing this at 2 am in virginia beach. there were no cars coming from anywhere, and pressing the button made the light turn yellow immediately.
- squarehappy, on 10/12/2007, -5/+35The buttons here in Silicon Valley may not cause the white glove to appear any sooner but they serve the important function of ensuring people have enough time to cross the street. This is important when Grandma has to shamble across eight lanes.
I'm sure the buttons give you the green sooner on quiet intersections, and time of day can play a factor. NYC is unique in that there's generally a constant flow of cars to protect pedestrians moving parallel with them. In downtown Palo Alto, they don't even have crosswalk lights. Pedestrians go when it's green, just like the cars. - dark_helmet, on 10/12/2007, -2/+24The buttons definitely work in my small town (Carleton place, Ontario) at every light that's triggered by a weight sensor as opposed to lights which change on a timer. I'm not sure about the lights on a timer though.
- squarehappy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22@dark_helmet: Traffic light sensors use induction to detect the presence of a vehicle.
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question234.htm - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+23The title should read: "It's true, more than 2/3rd's of the crosswalk buttons in NY are decoy's"
Or something to that effect anyway.
I know as a fact that the croswalk buttons in my city are real. In fact, depending on the traffic, the crosswalk buttons will change the lights immediately. - tsunamisteve, on 10/12/2007, -0/+20These buttons, at least in my experience, work faster the more you press them. :)
- Jeffrey903, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19When they were installed, they were actually working. You should read the entire article.
- etruscan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18Speaking of crosswalks - I was in San Jose a couple weeks ago for SES, and I liked the numeric timer on the crosswalk sign... letting you know how much time you had left to cross.
- kcpwnsgman, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14In Salt Lake City, they do nothing, but in the smaller towns around there, they do, only because some traffic lights dont change on a timer, but rather when a car passes, or the button is pressed.
- xenuxenuts, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9They said it'd cost $300 to $400 per intersection to remove them, which is why they're still there.
- chicken101, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12Have you tried to turn it off and on again?
- duckedtapedemon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Numberic timers are nice. My city has some that talk actually.
- subscribtion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9IDK what elevator company your friend worked for, but my father was an engineer for Schindler Elevators for many years, I can attest that the "Close Door" button does, in fact, work.
- bryxal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8same here the button will make the light turn yellow immediately if its been green for x amount of time.
(only applies to some crosswalks) - cliffzdude, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I've noticed from time to time places where the buttons seemed bogus, this just confirms it.
I have a theory that is has an effect that for lack of a better term, I will call "ownership".
If you pressed that button, then the next light change is "yours". So, the pedestrian is more likely to pay attention to the coming "walk" light, and act upon it promptly. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I don't know about where I live but I always push it just to make sure -- why wait to see if it's going to turn automatically or not when you can just push it to be certain?
- mrASSMAN, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9They definitely work in my city (Tacoma), but pressing them repeatedly doesn't make the light change quicker.. i hate when people do that. But, then when i'm alone i realize that i tend to press it more than once too, so i guess i'm hypocritical..
- eplawless, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10In Ottawa, Ontario we have this little ring of LEDs around some of them which count down when you press the button. It's very nice.
- hangtown, on 10/12/2007, -10/+18No, it should not read that, because "decoy's" is possessive. The plural form of decoy is decoys. Only contractions or possessive forms of words require apostrophes.
Sadly, I see this everywhere, even in business. Same thing with "loose" when people mean "lose." No one knows how to write in their own freaking language anymore.
Now get off my lawn, you damn kids! - CBTF, on 10/12/2007, -5/+12Hmm.. in Toronto they seem to have some effect on lights. Pretty interesting though.
If they were decoys i'd be pretty pissed off that tax money is wasted on that, though. - NuRvDamage, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10If you didn't get the "turning it off and back on again" joke you don't watch The IT Crowd.
- JavertHolmes, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10Unless he has a good friend named Decoy who collects traffic buttons, in which case the headline is missing proper capitalization.
- joel2600, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6most all of them work up here in Erie, PA
i can't imagine them working in NYC... that would be crazy, it would completeley impede the ability of the city to be able to develop a decent traffic flow.
think about it. - subscribtion, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8I KNEW IT! Bastards tried to pull one over on *me,* huh? That's it; there'll be hell to pay.
- EricJD, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Most of them here in Waterloo, IA work.
In fact, I know of a few places where the buttons make the opposing traffic signal turn yellow INSTANTLY when you press the button. - jvolkman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5A lot of stoplights (especially in suburban neighborhoods) have sensors under the pavement to detect cars. If a car is not present, the light won't change. Therefore, pressing the pedestrian walk button at a light like this will simulate the presence of a car and the light will change the next time the change interval comes around.
- vhold, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4They definitely have an effect here.
In my hometown, my school bus route actually required a kid to get off the bus and press the crosswalk button and run back on the bus because the timing of the light was so extremely lopsided. It was actually our idea as kids and we sold the bus driver on it.
That was in the mid 80s, I'm sure that'd be a million and one lawsuits now. - aleahey, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7a friend of mine kicked one off years ago, nothing back there, just a big bolt holding it on and a giant spring. no wire, no mechanics of any kind.
of course, i live in a rural-nothing-town that i doubt could afford working ones if they existed. - MalDON, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I know they are fake in my town. I watched them install them, no electrical wiring at all goes to it. Yet they place it to make the tourists more at home.
- DigitAl56K, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Here's how it works where I am in San Diego (I walk a lot):
All of the traffic lights have a fixed routine they go through in terms of letting various lanes of traffic pass. Associated with certain light states (e.g. letting traffic pass north and south) there is an _oppertunity_ for the walk light to be enabled for lanes which the traffic is not currently crossing _if_ a pedestrian has pressed the button by the time the lights switch into that particular state. One second too late, and you have to wait for the lights to go through a full cycle again before the walk sign will light up.
Once the walk light is on, pedestrians are given a set amount of time to cross. It seems to be longer than cars are generally given to cross when the walk light is not on, and cars travelling in the same direction will get a green light for longer as a side-effect.
It also seems to be a function of the normal traffic light control that certain parts of the light cycle (irrespective of crosswalk lights) can be configured to hold for a minimum period of time regardless of actual traffic flow, and that it may be possible to configure the lights differently for certain times of day.
The phenomenon of having a crosswalk light switch the lights instantly in the middle of the night may be because if the traffic flow is extremely light, when you press the button the lights have already spent their minimum duration in a particular state and so they change to the next state immediately. - Zakir, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Although the story is very interesting -- it still doesn't prevent anybody from not pressing the buttons! It's better to press them 100% of the time, so that 33% of the time you get the wanted effect than to never press them and never get to cross the street 30% of the time....
- joel2600, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5now that is just retarded. i think you probably missed something.
i can see a lot of them not working these days because the worked at one time, but now are disabled in favor of trying to develop a better traffic flow for increased amount of vehicles on the road.
installing them willfully with the intent of not making them work is just a waste of time and money... i really don't think old people or tourists put up enough of a fuss to get some fake buttons installed. - joel2600, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4you can press your selected floor again, that always seems to work for me to get the door closed as soon as i press the button
- coheedcollapse, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Funny thing is that I never push the buttons anyways. They rarely ever do anything, even in the small city I'm from. I think the only use they really have is if you're stuck at a crosswalk and no cars are coming from either direction, so pushing the button switches it over. That's what I've noticed anyway.
- masamunecyrus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Same thing here in Indianapolis at IUPUI. The lights still go by as normal, but the walk signal comes up, as opposed to staying as the orange hand signal, like it should.
- MasterGrief, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I always thought they were fake... Any time I've ever been alone in an elevator and hit the close door button, it would close way after I hit it. Sort of like a lazy mechanism, only it wasn't even listening to me to begin with so maybe I should think of it as a deaf mechanism.
- h0m3styl3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3ditto - in east lansing and royal oak michigan
- oniTony, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4There's only a marginal effect on major intersections. It is much more noticeable in places where a small residential street intersects with a much larger volume street. In many such places the 'cross' sign will not light up at all, unless the button has been pressed.
It also depends on how well equipped the intersection is. There's one in front of my University that takes traffic flow into account, and will change the lights instantly if there are no cars. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3In my small town of Weston, FL, the lights have a camera on top of them that senses how many cars are at the intersects, and determines when the lights change by that, i'm assuming the buttons also effect when it becomes green
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Most the elevators in my work building do not respond noticeably to pushing the close door button, although some of the suit-dudes jump in an repeatedly press it hoping to shave 1/10 second off their super important blackberry wielding journey to their floor, only to be caught foul by me taking the scenic route by pressing all the floor buttons.
Oh, and the traffic buttons work in my town. Don't know if they actually change the traffic flow (I doubt it) but they do light up a little green man and go "beep bup" north/south and "bup beep" east/west, oh, and they are touch sensitive rather than being a button and do in fact light up when pressed. - nikkesen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3They really need to make them work, so that the morons on Yonge Street actually use the lights instead of randomly crossing the streets as they so often do.
- Flanker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3They definitely work around LA. At some major intersections, you won't even get a walk signal if you don't press the button, even if the traffic moving parallel to your intended direction has a green light.
- RyanChappell, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Remember this post last year, oh I forget most of you have only been here 3 months:
http://digg.com/security/Hack_crosswalks - rnelsonee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It mostly depends on the size of your city. All of these buttons worked when they were first installed. But with larger cities, it became necessary (and easier to afford via taxes) to build lights that were timed with each other, which does wonders for traffic, and has very little effect on pedestrians - who may not get to cross right away, but they will get to within a minute or two. I wouldn't expect these signals to always work in America's top 20 cities. And as mentioned before, downtown DC is very nice in that the whole grid is timed in every direction, so you know how long you have to scamper across the road (it's displayed on the other side). Cities that don't time their lights just piss me off - it can't cost *that* much, and it just causes aggrivation and congestion. The road to get off of Waikiki to Honolulu has 10 lights, all out of sync with each other. It takes like 5 minutes to travel one mile. Stupid.
- haystacker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2In the next town over from mine the crosswalk buttons not only stop for you but there is an annoying beeping sound so you know pedestrians are crossing. In all towns and cities ive been to I know for a fact that crosswalk buttons work. I can understand why they dont work (or work slowly) in NYC, but I won't go into that.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2As the reply states, it is fake
- dagdigdugdegdog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2In Melbourne CBD many of the buttons are fakes. But I still pressing it out of habbit.
- RatTrap, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The crosswalk buttons in my town are fake for sure. They dont work for crap.
- JavertHolmes, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I would love to know why squarehappy's initial comment in this thread currently sits at -2. I found his/her comment very informative to the point where it saved me from posting a similar comment. Did the "shambling grandmother" line offend people to such an extent that the comment is now doomed to sit in the negatives despite its informativeness?
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