As others have said, the White cameras mounted on horizontal mast arms and vertical corner poles at intersections are not there for recording, or even for people to watch.
They are there as vehicle detectors to replace or supplement the loop detectors that are usually cut in the road.
The video from them is usually just fed to a video processor card, that watches 'zones' that are configured on the video for changes. Similar to how you set 'zones' for motion recording on CCTV DVR Systems, if any of you have ever done that. The Processor monitors these zones for certain changes, and if it detect a vehicle in this zone, it sends a signal to the traffic controller saying so. The Controller then makes 'intelligent' decisions based on these signals, which allows the signal to be more efficient on handing queued traffic around it.
The large majority of the ones installed in the Houston area are Iteris 'Vantage' Brand. Information about them is available here:
http://www.iteris.com/vvd.aspx?q=10011&c=6" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
How do I know this? Well, for any single intersection in the city of Houston with them, there's a Good Chance that I was the one who installed them, or was at least involved in the planning or installation
For example, I specifically did all the ones down Westheimer, Richmond, Bellaire, and the Light Rail downtown, as well as pretty much all of the ones on the west side, Westchase district area

There's tons of others that I've done as well ;)
Now, there are SOME out there that are actually brought back to a central location, and CAN be monitored, but even those are NOT recorded at this time. Government agencies typically _DO NOT RECORD_ traffic stuff like this, because it causes them to be subject to every single request that anyone puts in about them, causing a LOT of work. It's easier to just say 'We don't record, no records available', rather than have 1 or 2 people dedicated full time to simply serving every request put in by anyone.
Regarding Transtar Cameras, I also have installed and maintain a lot of them as well. As far as I know from the last time I was at Transtar, they do not record these cameras either. They are strictly live only. There is only ONE Agency in Harris County that has the Ability to record Transtar Cameras, and they ONLY use that ability during certain incidents, not all the time. Not going to say who that agency is, but I was involved in the installation of that system as well ;)
So, in short, if it's traffic signal or camera related in Harris County, chances are I currently am or was involved with it in some way ;)
I love my job, and I love answering questions from people on traffic signal related questions! Please, feel free to ask anything else you want to know, and I'll do my best to explain it ;)