I agree with you in principle, but pressing the button eagerly like that can have downsides. You press the button, the pedestrian light goes green, then somebod

I agree with you in principle, but pressing the button eagerly like that can have downsides. You press the button, the pedestrian light goes green, then somebody walking 100 meters behind you who actually wants to cross just misses the light and has to wait longer. The only unambiguous win (I think) would be for the light to change immediately when you press the button, with the throttling delay afterwards, as a few others have said in this thread. I wish I knew whether traffic signal designers intentionally don't use that design, or whether it simply doesn't occur to them. (Or is there some downside to that design?)