I hate those buttons (never knew what they were called until now!) with a passion. Last year's snow was especially brutal, and we encountered multiple intersections where the walking signal would ONLY turn if you pressed the button, yet the button was out of reach to anyone unwilling to risk life and limb clambering over a mountain of snow to reach it. Even when there isn't snow, these buttons are often placed in a location requiring getting off the sidewalk and into the dirt and weeds.

These things seem to be growing in popularity (and seem to be disguised as being of BENEFIT to pedestrians), while I'd like to see them completely eliminated. At the very least, can't the default always be that the walking man signal turns green, even if not pushed? Oh, have also run into the faux signals. The one at 34th and Hennepin used not to work (although I couldn't help pushing it anyway), but today I discovered that now it actually does.

RE: the Franklin/Lyndale button, I assume that it gets special attention because the Vision Loss Resources Center is located near there, and therefore has a much higher than average number of crossings by those who can't see the light.