>>1993266>Why are they so (apparently) hated?Because it's annoying to have to do an extra step to cross. Sometimes people forget. Sometimes people are running to catch the light. There's an infuriating thing here where the "open" crossing counts down in anticipation of a window to start a red light, but if you don't hit the button or the car detector in time, it will abort the red light and reopen the crossing. So yeah, you can literally see that your opportunity to cross is about to happen, run to try to hit the button, only to see the timer run out before you get there and lose the red light.
Also, all these beg-button intersections with car-detectors are SHIT at detecting bikes. They put little markings on the pavement where you are supposed to put the bike for maximum sensitivity or whatever (which will already piss off drivers, because now you are blocking a car that wants to turn). I have literally never had a detector meant for a car pick up my aluminium folding bike. Not once.
Picture how infuriating it is if you were in a car waiting at a red light, and it literally never turns green. You can even see the cross walk count down and think, "oh, here comes my green light—WHAT THE FUCK??? IT RESET?" You have to get out of the car and hit the beg button, cagey.
>>1993270>Anyway, it's a little more complicated, because some beg buttons now will emit audible signals for blind people to know when to walk, and if you press them aggressively they'll be like "wait" or something.>But knowing urbanists and the yimby crowd, they'll be getting rid of those soon, because urbanists want to eliminate anyone who isn't in the NSDAP catalogue of "productive people" and seeing blind people around is bad for muh property values.My city kept the buttons and the audio, but that's now the only role for the buttons. The crossing activates regardless of whether the button is pressed, but if the button is pressed then the audio cues for the intersection are activated.
