"No thru traffic" signs have been a part of life for a long time, long before Waze came around, and that's the simplest answer to the issue for these residents.

"No thru traffic" signs have been a part of life for a long time, long before Waze came around, and that's the simplest answer to the issue for these residents. [1] Yes, as other posters have pointed out, this is an instance of technology butting up against entrenched interests and behaviors: the shortcuts formerly only known by a few, are now available to anybody with a smartphone; rich residents get mad at the increased traffic, and political action happens quicker when rich people are involved. [2,3] Whether or not this is an example of the rich getting their way more quickly than the average person, I think that the point about residential areas seeing increased through traffic is an important one. No one, whether rich or poor, wants to live on a heavily trafficked street. (I believe that it is possible to create environments that contain both successful transportation infrastructure and livable streets for all people.) The answer, however, isn't to shut these roads off to thru traffic (an exercise in futility), but rather to create better routes for people to get to work. Whether these routes are better mass transit options, better new roads, or improvements to existing roads, they will all, unfortunately, be uphill battles against NIMBYers. Hopefully LA, and the US in general, can eventually come around from the car-dominated perception of the urban environment. [1] http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=236446 http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=236446 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_City_Council_District_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_City_Council_Distr... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Fernando_Valley#Property_values https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Fernando_Valley#Property_v...