I think “press to cross” button has become quite ubiquitous around here. If the button doesn’t do the trick, giving the Heisman usually does.
I don’t know what you mean by “around here”. We say it all the time. If engineers were really concerned about safety, and these RRFBs really worked (iff’y), the lights would be activated by a camera.
I am still at a loss as to why they could not have just installed a pedestrian stop light at this location like at many other busy intersections on the W&OD (Gallows, Maple Ave, the two streets in Herndon and one in Leesburg whose names I can not recall and am too lazy to look up)… It sounds like this would be a relatively easy and simple solution to the problem while waiting for an over/underpass to be built.