In Kitchener (just west of Toronto), we have a bunch of intersections where there are two possible changes. For a car-triggered change (from the inductive loop in the pavement), the light just changes for a few seconds, to get the car through. If you push the beg button, you get the pedestrian change, where there's a momentary walk signal followed by a countdown.

I get why this exists in terms of not having cars on the busy street waiting for a countdown when there's no actual person there, but I find it very frustrating that there's basically zero chance that I will just "get a green" crossing the busy street, since it's such a narrow window now. And because I can't trigger the road sensor with my bicycle, it also means I have to ride up on the sidewalk to get to the button.

I would really rather it was just a timer.

Interesting about the road sensor. In Vancouver (years ago, admittedly), I had no problem triggering the road sensor with my bike.

Interesting! I've never had success triggering them, though that's not surprising given I'm on an aluminum and carbon frame.

There was actually a kickstarter a few years ago to build a magnetic loop you could put on your bike to trigger the sensor via a button press, but unfortunately it didn't meet its funding target and seems to have gone underground: https://www.veloloop.com/faq/

If you've got metal rims, and the loops are reasonably tuned, you should be able to trigger them if you're well positioned. Apparently, adding a copper wire loop under your rim tape will work for carbon fiber rims as well.

There's some pretty good information here: https://www.bikewalknc.org/bicycle-detection-at-traffic-sign...

But I've been lucky enough to have California government on my side, I guess.

I just used a button yesterday in Herndon, VA (D.C. suburbs) that had the audio crossing indicator, and actually announced the street name with a voice when the light changed. My friend commented that it would seem unlikely a blind person would be crossing there, but I have a blind friend who commutes downtown every day on the Metro.

I don't know if the button does anything else, or if it was just repurposed like you describe.

Welp, that's a few hours I'm never getting back from that rabbit hole. I really should have seen the Admiral shouting about it being a trap.