[ashleyjoseph]

Hey, that reminds me of a New York Times article I read a few years back.

Apparently the majority of NYC's pedestrian signals were installed in the 1960s and you could press a button to request a traffic light change to help you cross the road.

Then those buttons were decommissioned at a later date and have not worked since the 1980s or so. They're still there, and you can press them, but they do nothing.

Occasionally people will still press them, especially newcomers to the city, but it has no effect on the traffic, which will still change as the normal patterns indicate.