The Shortcut Stops Here, Residents Say : Traffic: The council agrees to put up a barrier discouraging commuters from using Higuera Street. Residents of neighboring streets protest.

It has all the elements of a typical rush-hour scene: bumper-to-bumper cars, stop-and-go traffic, tense drivers hunched behind their steering wheels intent on getting to their destinations as quickly as possible.

But the cars are not traveling on a highway or even a major boulevard. Rather, the drivers are taking a popular shortcut through a tree-lined residential street in an east Culver City neighborhood.

In an effort to stem the flow of traffic past their driveways, residents of Higuera Street have persuaded the City Council to install a traffic barrier at Washington Boulevard.

The barrier will make it impossible for commuters to go from Higuera Street onto Robertson Boulevard, which has an on-ramp to the Santa Monica Freeway. Instead, motorists heading north on Higuera will have to turn either left or right onto Washington, and drivers heading south on Robertson will likewise be required to turn left or right onto Washington. Cars traveling along Washington Boulevard will not be affected.

The barrier will be installed Dec. 2. Traffic engineer Ken Johnson hopes the device will send traffic onto nearby streets designed to handle larger numbers of cars, such as National Boulevard.

About 16,000 cars a day travel Higuera Street, about three times more than what it was designed to handle, Johnson said. National, on the other hand, is operating well below its capacity of 30,000 cars.

But the uncertainty of just where the traffic will go brought residents from streets surrounding Higuera Street to Monday’s council meeting to protest the plan.

“This is a plain-wrap, quick-fix approach that does not take into consideration the impact it will have on nearby streets,” said Victor Clemens, who lives on a cul-de-sac off of National Boulevard. “Any commuter with an ounce of savvy will find their way back onto Higuera Street.”

Another resident who lives off of National Boulevard, Paul Goodwin, expressed anger at not being included in the two-year effort by Higuera Street residents and city officials to devise a solution. He called for a neighborhood-wide solution.

Residents on nearby Wesley and Schaefer streets and Helms Avenue, all the same width as Higuera Street, said they already have their share of traffic and cannot handle any more. They say they are virtual prisoners during rush hour, barely able to make turns in and out of their streets.

“When I try to turn into my own driveway,” said Wesley Avenue resident Ed Jackson, “I have people honking at me as if I’m doing something wrong.”

They pointed out that fewer than 60 homes are located on the residential stretch of Higuera Street, whereas their streets have hundreds.

Many residents called for an additional barrier at Hayden Avenue and Higuera Street, but Johnson told the council that the one barrier could work just as well as two.

“This is an experiment,” Councilman James D. Boulgarides said. “It is not final, it is not cast in concrete. If it doesn’t work, we’re going to reverse it.”

Councilman Steven Gourley held out for the second barrier. The council approved the Washington-Higuera barrier 4 to 1.