Pedestrian crossing button laid low at Danforth and Coxwell: The Fixer

People shouldn’t have to bend over to change the traffic lights so they can cross the street.

But when destructive nitwits decide to have some fun with a pedestrian crossing button by tearing it from the post to which it is mounted, it has nowhere to go but down.

That’s the situation at the southwest corner of Danforth and Coxwell Aves., where the button mechanism is dangling by a thread — and didn’t get that way because a car banged into it.

Jonathan Lowe posted a photo on SeeClickFix of the damaged button mechanism, noting it has become a repeat target for neighbourhood vandalism.

“It’s been like this a couple of times earlier in the year,” said Lowe.

“This button assembly never seems like it’s installed for long before it’s ripped from the pole and left dangling by the cord.”

We went there and found it hanging upside down from the wire that powers the mechanism, just a few inches above the sidewalk. We could still hear the audible signal chirping and activated the countdown signal when we pushed the button.

There is no shortage of problems to fix around here, but one of the things that keeps us in business is vandalism of public property, a bigger drain on the public purse than most people realize.

When drunken teens build a fire below playground equipment in a darkened schoolyard, and cheer the incineration of plastic slides and climbers that they played on only a few years before, is it a sign of the end times?

Or has it always been that way? Stuff always got broken for no good reason. But the scope and scale of the destruction seems larger and more pernicious than ever before.

The crossing button damage cannot be dismissed as high-spirited exuberance by rascals. But what to do about it?

STATUS: Vandalism is a bigger problem than we’ll ever fix. But for now, we’ve asked James Chandler, who’s in charge of traffic signals, if he can have the button reattached, until somebody else puts the boots to it.