What is up with the walkway on some railroad crossings?
 

Why do some rail road crossings have this huge design to place a ladder and a walkway ontop of their crossing? It's a huge investment of resources and installation time, why bother with doing this? What is the purpose of having this? Certainly not to make changing the bulbs on the lights easier, as they use the same technology as normal car crossing roads usually use and if those go out you just get a guy in a lift to go up there, which is much more efficient use of resources.

If you are referring to the cantilevered flashing lights structure then this might help:
https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/hsip/xin...8040/chp2f.cfm

I see that they talk about t
"The inclusion of a ladder and access walkway allows for easier maintenance with less impact to highway traffic."

But it doesn't explain why they did this over the what is standard for something that is more ubiquitous like traffic lights.

Perhaps you should be asking why don't normal traffic signals have access walkways rather than why do railroad crossings have them.
I would guess that it is because of cost and aesthetics. There are far more normal traffic signals and would you want all those cantilevered structures in your towns and cities?

Well we know of the cost. It boggles my mind that the railroad spends this money to place that walkway + ladder at all their new/upgraded crossings and I am looking for a specific reason. Maybe it is all aesthetics choices but the guy making the decision should produced a document or something saying why.