Wasn't the context here in Germany, where the executive finally made a zebra crossing?

* We don't have "college students". We have however real students, e.g. in University.

* Over here it's not custom to go with micro-management problems to an elected person, e.g. to the member of parliament of your area. Whenever I see the (partially propaganda) shows where russians ask the dictator Putin about day-to-day things and they even air this yearly in the TV I cringe. Or when I see in US movies that people go with low things to their congressman... that simple isn't custom in Germany. And thus the elected people are much LESS likely looking if people wanting something would elect them or not.

* Normally it is the executive, not the legislative, that decides over these matters. In Germany, the executive isn't elected by the public.

* In Germany we have the idea of "main point of living" (Hauptwohnsitz) and "secondary point of living" (Zweitwohnsitz). And in quite a few towns you have to pay an extra-tax on the Zweitwohnsitz. There are ways to mitigate this, but the easiest solution as a student is just to take your Hauptwohnsitz at your university town. And there you can then vote (you can't vote at your Zweitwohnsitz). And so it happens that the town magistrates of student towns are usually a bit different than of "normal" towns, e.g. the town mayors from the green party. All these young students voting more for this party than e.g. the german liberals.

So, all in all, from the POV of the story in Berlin ... little of what you wrote made sense. Except your first sentence. Infrastructure building is a slow, a tremendously slow process in Germany (however, once we have it, it's usual very nice. We germans call shit on our railway ... but it's lightyears better than e.g. the US railways system!). And even a zebra crossing falls under the infrastructure categorization.