In Kitchener (just west of Toronto), we have a bunch of intersections where there are two possible changes. For a car-triggered change (from the inductive loop in the pavement), the light just changes for a few seconds, to get the car through. If you push the beg button, you get the pedestrian change, where there's a momentary walk signal followed by a countdown.

I get why this exists in terms of not having cars on the busy street waiting for a countdown when there's no actual person there, but I find it very frustrating that there's basically zero chance that I will just "get a green" crossing the busy street, since it's such a narrow window now. And because I can't trigger the road sensor with my bicycle, it also means I have to ride up on the sidewalk to get to the button.

I would really rather it was just a timer.