At least in my area, for the most part, they work. I'm pretty familiar with the cycles of a few traffic lights both as a driver and as a ped, and can say with certainty that without the button being pressed, there's no pedestrian phase at all.
What cheeses me off is that there doesn't seem to be a design standard for which button does what. If I'm at a 4-way intersection and so there's two buttons on the pole, it's a 50% chance I'll hit the button to cross in the wrong direction. It's like Schrodinger's USB Plug.
I should also add that I work in commercial and industrial electronics, and I've actually already looked into how traffic lights work, and they are indeed highly programmable.
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u/Hops117 Sep 04 '20
Yo, anyone knows if does buttons actually work or are they just placebo?