Maybe I'm strange, but "beg buttons" (or walk buttons) are probably the best way to address most intersections. Design flaws such as the snow walk button aside, assuming that there's always a walking pedestrian at an intersection when there's a car at the intersection (and that there's never a pedestrian when there's not a car at the intersection) seems ill-advised. There may be times (probably plenty of times, depending on the intersection) where there's no pedestrians needing to cross, and the additional time being used unnecessarily is wasted time for people who choose to drive. Likewise, unless the intersection is manually timed (in which case they should have the walk signs timed in also), there will be times where there's a pedestrian but no car waiting to cross. How is the pedestrian supposed to signal that they want to cross?

I really don't see a better solution on the horizon; better to fix a few of the implementation flaws of current walk buttons than to try and get rid of them entirely.