How Much Commuting is Possible

[Mogwai1313 2]

Howdy all, I have  a question.

I have been playing this game since the first day it came out and I have no problems getting good-sized cities. But, they are usually ugly.

I am trying to build a region to use in a CJ and I would like to give my city a bit more personality than the cookie cutter cities I have been churning out for over a year now. I have implemented many more BATs and customed content and I have been trying to plan out where I am going to build downtown areas and so on and so forth.

The problem I keep running into is heavy industry. I have one city in particular that I would love to have no industry in, at least not the high polluting heavy variety. Now, I know that Sims will commute to other cities for jobs but how realistic is it that all of my Sims that work in that field will commute out of city to their job? Another thing I am running into is that it seems that Industrial areas are not utilizing the railroad for shipping. I have two cities connected by rail and I have a shipping railyard but nothing seems to be getting shipped via that shipping station. Any ideas?

The third question I have is this, are there any things that really attract High Tech Industry to the cities? I know a high number of educational facilities helps but is there anything else? Right now, I have an above average IQ for my Sims and I have the taxes set very low for High Tech but not many companies seem to be moving in.

If you can help me out with any of these problems, I would be greatly appreciatve! Thanks in advance.

[moganite 4]

low pollution helps and look at the desirabilty map

you want it to be green for HT

[Tolomar 5]

yea education is a major factor..need smart seems for HT...demand will start as low as 60EQ...but the higher the better...this will create more demand, also HT acts more like R$$$ sims in what it desires..no pollution or garbage, clean water, they like parks (specially the flower parks)...short freight trips..HT can be very picky if any enviromental or crime factors creep into your city...

I suggest...raising the taxes on the Manf and Dirty industy...not to high as this will hurt your mayor rating and hurt HT growth also..this will dicourage the polluting IND  growth  (I suggest 1-2% increase on them, then check the demand graphs and stop raising when the demand drops close to 0 or at least well below the current demand for HT IND, if the dirty IND and Manf over take HT demand...they will start to grow and their pollution will hurt HT growth..watch carefully.demand chart change from month to month...keep an eye on them

for INd to load onto rail it has dierectly touch the line if it doesn't you'll need to use freight trainstations to transfer cargo from road to rail..and be the fastest way out of town...i myself tend to make a break in the streets and place a park in the middle of the roadway on any direct outgoing roads making them automaticly longer trips out of town...forcing the frieght to use the rail..

freight takes up very little room on your train lines...sometimes to see it on the charts you need to disable the other forms of transit on the graph to actually see it...specially in highly populated city or cities with many comuters going in and out..it might barely register as a spec at the bottom of the chart

if you have the RES living in other cities...you want a well establish MT and highways system to lower the comute times specially highways as R$$ sims like to drive most of the time

If you don't have it already I suggest getting the NAM (latest versoion found in the modds and downloads section)...the path finding helps control the sims wacky ways of comuting...passanger and freight...

[Mogwai1313 2]

Thanks for the responses, I have the latest NAM installed and I also am utilizing freight trainstations. The problem I have is that when I query the station, it shows that it basicaly isn't being used and I cannot for the life of me, figure out why. Either way, I think I am going to start my region over and implement some new strategies I have come up with and see if that helps.

Thanks again!

[danob 1]

I had the same prob with freight lines. Industry wasn't using the stations. They were finding shorter (not faster) ways out of the city. What I did is isolated my industrial areas where the only way in or out was freight/passenger stations. That forces the sims to use busses and rail which in turn lowered comute times and polution and adds a few MT $$$ to your coffers.

Hope this helps!

[BrokenBrick 0]

I suppose you could get a lot of sims to commute out of the city. You just need several forms of mass transit all headed in that direction, as well as a good highway system. Also if you build your industral sectors near highways or seaports they will use for freight just as well as trains, at least that is what I have found. I have problems with churning out boring cities as well, so I have started a new region that I networked together thoroughly with elevated highways and ferries. You just have to try to plan ahead. I did my best but but almost all of my MT systems are maxed out. I have found though that one good way to reduce commute time is to sprinkle high desnity residential and high density commercial together in small litrle sections. This way you sort of build a patchwork of zones and it makes it easier in some cases for sims to get to work. In any case, I hope I was of some help

[newyorkstate 6]

Interesting findings. I never knew this at all. I've realized I had to FORCE Sims to use a special Transportation Method out of town.

[Mogwai1313 2]

My sims will happily take mass transit, I was just curious as to how many would use the system. I have now started my region over and am implementing a highway system from day one in all of my cities. It is spendy, but so far it has worked very well. More to come later!