Buenos Aires has much better solution: pedestrians carry crosswalk lines in their imagination, and they can apply them anywhere it's needed, at zero cost to the municipality.
When normal crosswalks don't do do their job, it's only natural people will ignore then. In Buenos Aires it's literally safer for the pedestrian to look for a gap in cars, crosswalk or not, and cross there, than it is to attempt to walk on the crosswalk while there are cars driving in that part of the road.