I noticed the other nite that the HPS lamps on the main road here go from dim white to the full gold or copper color in under a minute they are on electronic ballasts don't know if they would be as fast on normal 50c/s ballast

I would guess all modern HPS are way faster than the older designs used to be. I would guess part of the reason is the use of Xenon buffer gas (it has higher arc voltage drop even at cold, so dissipates more heat than the Ar "classic", which had to evaporate some metals first).
And as the limitations for the ballast behavior are the same as with the MH (maximum peak current about twice the normal rms current) and as it is common for most of the MH ballasts to be rated for HPS as well, I would not be surprised the same approach is kept with the use of HPS as well (using same ballast as for the MH's, so featuring the current boost for warmup).