A street that goes from 1000 cars a day to 45,000 cars a day in the course of months is not a "densely populated neighborhood." It's a neighborhood experiencing the externalities of someone else's business model. A family that moves somewhere because of the qualities of that neighborhood has, indeed, experienced a tort when an organization colludes to destroy a fundamental aspect of that neighborhood.

Every urban planning study you care to quote will tell you that there is zero upside to building higher volume roads. High volume roads mean sprawl, delayed 911 response and cultural isolation. Building high-volume roads through low-volume neighborhoods destroys neighborhoods. Beverly Hills is Beverly Hills because it fought a freeway along Sunset Blvd. Commerce, CA is Commerce, CA because the 110 slices right the fuck through it.

Neighborhoods do not benefit in the slightest from commuter traffic passing through. Neighborhoods benefit from isolation from traffic. NOBODY (No. Bod. Y.) lacks proper roads because of isolationism- "proper roads" come from property taxes, which come from property values, which are destroyed by high traffic counts.

Large roads are not an "inevitable consequence." Large roads are the result of negligent urban planning. Waze is not an urban planner - they're an urban exploiter. They are, effectively, an architectural virus. The way to preserve a city is not by letting the contagion run its course, but by inoculating against the disease.