highways

[dac8767 0]

I love to grid cities, but I dont know what the best highway set up is. Should I have 2 highways ging in each direction, or more? Ive even heard people say that they dont use highways. Is this a good idea?

Side question: I downloaded the NetworkAddon mod. Does this incorperate the same idea as the pathfinding mod, or should I download that seperately. I ask this because before I downoaded anything, I found that my sims hardly used highways. If I am going to grid a city with highways, I want to make sure they will get used.

Thanks - -Fred

[Creathir 3]

I usually like to have highways connect long stretches of neighborhoods... Down to a central commercial district. I also have them extend to the edges of a city, to connect to the industrial districts. (I try to split the industry far away from the residential if I can)

One thing to try to avoid, is using highways in straight lines... otherwise it makes the "grid" look VERY unrealistic. Look at a map of Chicago, NY, LA, Houston, or any other major city, and see how the highways move in straight lines at times, but often curve around various different things.

Be sure to take use of the ground level highways as well, as they are much more economical than elevated highways.

Just some pointers.

- Creathir

[dac8767 0]

I know many people do not like a perfectly grid city. I, on the otherhand, enjoy the challenge of designing a perfect city that is symetrical and efficient. I know it isnt realistic, but I think it is more of a challenge, and more fun. So I am going to stick to straight highways for now.

P.S. I dont exactly understand what you were describing above. Could you post a screen shot of your layout?

[pgwrules 0]

Dont Use Highways

Every City that i've built with a highway connecting it has been a failure. The Cities turned out completly flat, I became poor, and The City center was dead flat. even with a fully watered city, Medium density zones in high wanted areas, and a population of 21000, My City remained flat. Highways also cause massive ammounts of pollution, especally when its overcrowded.

My option since then has always been connect reigons with avenues and highways only when its absoulty needed inter-reigons. Favor mass transit, it take up less space and is less costly. If you absoulty insist on having a highway, try to zone it over an avenue or sideways to zones, simply to make it easier and less costly to build.

[DreTitans23 2]

I used to build grid cities, and the one effective way of transportation I used is avenues. Highways should not be used in a grid city due to their size and cost. Avenues are cheaper and are most effective in grid cities.

[manu-fan 0]

I've used ground Highways fairly effectively to connect cities to each other. I run them by the side of development and then branch off roads or avenues into the developed areas. Seems to work OK.

Cheers.

[kingmadmushroom 0]

highways are the greatest mode of transport.

i always build them between my two areas/cities

just make sure that the sims have to use the highways (ie. no connecting side roads)

[dac8767 0]

does the networkaddon mod incorperate the pathfinding mod, or should I download both?

[Sim shady 12]

NAM has a path finding mod in it, you just have to choose which version you want when you install the nam

[ryoshi22 0]

Although I do not grid all of my cities (just the CBD), I typically use highways as beltways to skirt around the city, with suburbs outside and C+I inside. These then have a few T junctions which drop down to avenues, which run to the heart of the city. Then I try to force the sims to use only those to get around town.

[rodent1989 9]

I love using highways, I build a "core city" which has High density I and C zones, and a spider web of highways.  They start near the edge of the central city and radiate out until they meet the ring road (ryoshi22 called it a beltway) and I build my suburbs along the beltway.  It looks realistic, and functions rather well.

[Wolves 0]

Well, i only use them as orbitals now (surrounding the outskirts of the city in a ring) and for intercity roads. I much preffer rail for the city itself.

[xiziz 11]

I use them all the time, i funnel my sims onto the Motorways and have exits at crucial points, this to minimise the ammount of throughfare traffic the city gets, this means longer commute times for cardrivers(more people chose mass transit, which makes me money) and controled pollution, since theres more or less only carpollution on the motorways and i can easly separate them from the buildings with a greenzone.

Though i also use a modified speedsetting on my roadnetwork so that sims will allways chose a longer but faster way on a better road, ie, people hate using streets sine they go so slow on them, but motorways they can travel about 6 times the distance in the same time, much like reality

Then again, i hardly grid at all, even my downtowns, i only grid landmark w2w districts ^^