r/TacticalUrbanism

My city has started installing beg buttons in places where they simply don't belong, in order to "optimise" traffic (read: make pedestrians wait for more cars to pass). They are all touch based, they seem to be capacitive, not resistive. Which subreddit or documentation can I follow to build a way to permanently touch these things, to trigger the lights the way they used to be triggered, for pedestrians to be able to cross at every light change?

I already tried objects and batteries, no joy.