Sydney, You've Been Pointlessly Pressing the Pedestrian Crossing Button for 24 Years

All those beeps for nothing.

Entries for The Walkley Awards closed on Friday, but we’re demanding the deadline for this achievement in journalism be extended to accomodate a just-published report by the Sydney Morning Herald all about pedestrian buttons.

According to the SMH, the "green men" at all Sydney CBD intersections are automated between the hours of 7am and 7pm from Monday to Thursday, from 7am to 9pm on Fridays, and from 8:30am to 9pm on Saturdays. And they’ve been automated since 1994.

This means the pedestrian crossing light often goes from red to green when it’s scheduled to do so, regardless of how many presses it gets.

So, if you’re frantically jabbing the button at 4:30pm on a Tuesday arvo, your jabs are going unnoticed.

But, if it’s a Sunday, or outside of the hours listed above, your button-presses are actually heeded, and can help speed up the “green man”.

The SMH adds that the average waiting time for cars, bikes and pedestrians in Sydney’s CBD is 90 seconds.

But the average amount of time your city has been lying to you? Twenty-four years.

Of course, this doesn't mean you should start disrespecting the "green man" and begin jaywalking whenever you feel like it.

That's because...

Header Image: iStock.com/AlexWang_AU