Walking in Waterloo Region

[highlander]

There are pedestrian presence sensors that are a closer analog to inductive loops than a manually activated button (I only know of video based systems, though, and I don't think they're very common).

I think the issue with these buttons is that they aren't necessarily a reliable indicator of pedestrian presence. Some (all of the new ones being installed?) have a status light that indicates whether it has been pressed that cycle, so at least people don't assume those already waiting before they arrive have pressed it.