This seems to be really common in the Bay Area and was one of the reasons I absolutely hated the city of Berkeley when I was there. You just can't direct traffic like this if your infrastructure can't handle the load to begin with; it's selfish beyond belief.

In Los Angeles, people were using Fullerton Road like this for years. The county finally got funding and actually realigned it to a proper road for people to use to commute on and the original Fullerton Road is back to what it was -- a small residential street.

It's called filtered permeability, and is a common retrofit in some countries in Europe. Wealth doesn't come into it — you will find it in some really poor parts of London, as well as the City (financial district) and some very rich neighbourhoods.

The point is that the non-arterial road can't handle the load, so the barrier returns it to its original purpose — the residents of and visitors to that street.

The intention is that the people who were using this route either - use the main road (slightly increasing the traffic there) - use public transport or a bicycle instead - stop making the journey altogether

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permeability_(spatial_and_tran...

"just can't direct traffic like this if your infrastructure can't handle the load to begin with; it's selfish beyond belief."

This is the same thing the pedestrian, transit, and bicycle fans that make up the majority in Berkeley think about your choice to drive a car at all in their city. And they're right.

> You just can't direct traffic like this if your infrastructure can't handle the load to begin with; it's selfish beyond belief.

I don't see what's "selfish" about this. Different roads serve different purposes--these sorts of neighborhood streets are meant to be quiet streets shared by a variety of modes of transportation heading in various directions, freeways like the 405 are designed to accommodate large numbers of motor vehicles heading in a single direction. They are designed for these distinct purposes--they differ in their construction materials, in the number of intersections, in their safety features, and in their proximity to homes.

To me, the idea that we should just declare the two equivalent when traffic is sufficiently bad sounds a bit like saying that it's selfish of pedestrians to not allow drivers to use the sidewalk at rush hour.

Yes, you can. The roads weren't designed for huge amounts of commuter traffic, so maybe you should stop using them for huge amounts of commuter traffic.

Mountain View has done the same thing.

https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3814583,-122.0585511,3a,75y,...

Wow, if you look at the map where that is, they did it just slightly south of that road as well. Basically you can't get from the east side of that neighborhood to the west side without leaving it.

"you can't get from the east side of that neighborhood to the west"

Of course you can, just use your feet.

That doesn't work to well in the suburbs.

These are all over St. Louis, but for a totally different reason: crime prevention.

* https://www.google.com/maps/@38.6280859,-90.2583063,3a,75y,2...

* https://www.google.com/maps/@38.6289577,-90.2580606,3a,75y,2...

Can you explain how it's supposed to work? I mean why is it crime preventing?

Here's an article that explains the theory pretty well: http://www.popcenter.org/Responses/closing_streets/print/