This kind of thing happened in the days before app maps/directions, but it is arguably worse now. My friends' street is the slightest bit of a shortcut. Like,

This kind of thing happened in the days before app maps/directions, but it is arguably worse now. My friends' street is the slightest bit of a shortcut. Like, it might save 30 seconds or a minute but it avoids a really annoying stoplight-controlled intersection. It is also a quiet, purely residential street. For 20+ years, people who live on that street park way out from the curb on both sides so that the street is nearly impassable for most of the day unless you drive quite slowly (like at a crawling pace). People still use it as a shortcut, but at least speeding down that low-speed-limit road where lots of kids play in the neighborhood is not so common anymore.