The ways of the city have set in too deeply.

When I walk home from the convenience store near my apartment, I have to cross a particularly troublesome intersection.  Cars stream onto the street from several inlets, so breaks in traffic are far apart.  I won’t count how many times I’ve stood for a full minute or two just waiting to cross.

There’s a traffic light, but those aren’t always helpful for crossing streets in Boston.  For example, the Walk sign over at Cleveland Circle barely lasts long enough to get a quarter of the way across the full intersection.  You have to race traffic anyway, so why wait for the light?

There are usually buttons to press to signal that you want to cross, but those just don’t matter during the day.  Lights don’t just instantly change when you press the button unless they’re specifically staying red until they sense traffic in your direction.  If the light is just cycling normally, you’re out of luck.

On my way home tonight, I suddenly made the connection that my troublesome light was at the entrance to a cemetery, where there’s almost never any traffic.  The light stays green on the main street unless it has a reason to change.

I pressed the button — possibly the first time I’ve done that inside the city of Boston.

The light changed instantaneously to yellow, and then red.  Then the walk sign appeared.

…

Let us never speak of this again.