Ring Roads

[rodent1989 9]

I'm building a major city in my region right now and I have a downtown with a highway on each side.  I'm nearing the edge of the map and want to build a ring road around the downtown.  Its only about 90 tiles from the other freeway though.  (thats about 1.4 km or 0.9 miles).  It that too close?  In reality, do freeways ever get that close together?

[specopsjimmy 0]

A lot of major cities have highways that close. Look at Miami with 95 and the turnpike. I also ringed my downtown with highways it looks and works great.

[crazyyaya 4]

It depends on how long they stay together, if its not really high density, then freeways usually don't stay that close for a long time, however there are several cities that have very close freeways.

[ngeeves 5]

I think it would only look good if there were high density buildings in between as otherwise there would be no need to have two highways close together. Usually two highways close together serve as support for each other and easing congestion.

[GMT 389]

nothing unusual with highways running next to each other, but it shouldn't be for a long track.

1... 1 1/2 miles maybe as a maximum... ok there're bigger citys with 2 highways running side by side for 5 6... maybe even 7 miles...

but I don't think your city is that big.

oh, and you don't necessarily need high density in between them, medium and low does it aswell... but the lower the density, the more ghetto-like will be the final result. Maybe a small industrial strip with low density industrial areas would give a good look, few storehouses, logistics, you know, tertiary sector (If your familiar with industrial classifications)

[rodent1989 9]

Thanks for all the suggestions.  After returning to the city and looking at the surrounding development (almost exclusively low-density R$$$)  I decided that a freeway was probably ridiculous.  Instead I made a "ring road" shape using an avenue.  It fits in much better with the mansions.

[bbfan02 23]

Can u show a picture of the "ring road"? Thanks.

[_MostlyHarmless 17]

A lot of highways get close together like that.

An avenue would probably look better though.

[Dalton 23]

bbfan02,

This is what a ring road looks like,   this one is from Paris France,   See the big Highway making a circle around the city instead of going from Point A to Point B?  That's your ring road.

[GingerBlokey 30]

Ring roads are a vitally important part of planning a realistic city. Most cities have one or two. They can either be planned or organic, most in the UK are organic where they just form rings around a city as opposed to something like the M25 which was planned to encircle the city. The internal ring road usually soaks up all of the main arterial roads and prevents them from entering the CBD or Downtown area.

All of these cities have ring roads, some are easier to spot than others

You can see here how the internal ring road acts as a feeder road for all the arterials.

[Haljackey 17,303]

If you have a dense urban community, than close ring roads can be common. LOL just look at Beijing, or Mexico City, where they have 8 or more Ring Roads!

Just one question for ya rodent1989, is your city landlocked? If it is, ring roads are more common because they can circle the city more easily.

[FavreKev04 13]

Here's one from a medium density area with allot of factories

[_MostlyHarmless 17]

I was just showing how highways can be close together no problem. Those others are good examples of ring roads.

[rodent1989 9]

Since this has become a decent thread about ring roads, I'll post a picture of the situation.  You can see that the freeways do not follow US regulations and are more "organic."

You can see the highways marked in blue.  You can see the small sections of avenue that I added near the upper left to make it more of a ring.  The dashed line shows where the entire ring will be when it's done.

[_MostlyHarmless 17]

Cool looking ring road you got there. I am sure it will turn out fine. That CBD looks very good.

[david1314 44]

Well, for comparison sake

London, M25: ~45mi diameter east-west, ~38 mi north-south

Rahleigh NC, I-40/I-540: 5-6 mi diameter

Indianapolic, I-465: ~15 mi diameter

Houston: The innermost highway loop encircles about 1 sq, mile of downtown.

The I-610 in houston is about 10 miles.

So in conclusion....if you've built a ring road, you've done it right!

[bbfan02 23]

Nice city so far rodent. I really think the ring freeway will really help your commuters out.

[rodent1989 9]

I have grand plans for the area.  Maybe even a CJ.  There is at least one more ring to be planned and built.  That picture is looking south.  I'll need one on he north side too.At first I was afraid they were all too close but after looking at some of the pics posted here, it seems just about right.

[ngeeves 5]

Would a ring road work so well if it was intercity? would they travel effectively from one city, through another, to a neighbouring city? This effectively just bypasses a city.

[Shingure 56]

None of my cities have real ring roads. The reason why is because of the fact the terrian is complex meaning alot of hills , cliffs , and crevasies. Which makes it hard for me to do that. But In a city with 317,000 people do I really need that.

[rodent1989 9]

the funny thing is about ringroads in simcity is that they serve an entirely different purpose.  In real life they are meant to collect and divert traffic around downtown.  If you look at my pic posted above, the highways actually connect main residential and industiral areas to each other.  The usage is very high on a few sections of the highway, but to answer ngeeves question: no.  The only "intercity" traffic is freight trucks going out and car/bus traffic from neighboring cities.  it doesn't serve the same purpose as a real life ringroad.

[bbfan02 23]

So, I think I'll use a ring road in one of my cities were it connects the high-tech industry zone of the city with the manly residential portion, and I think they have to use that to get to work and to have a job.

[Flann 1,709]

In my newest city, the highways all form a loop around the core of the city. It works well because if someone on the south side works in an office on the north side of the CBD, he can hop on the freeway and zip around downtown to a closer exit. It keeps through traffic out of the busy city.

[masochist 111]

Originally posted by: ngeeves Would a ring road work so well if it was intercity? would they travel effectively from one city, through another, to a neighbouring city? This effectively just bypasses a city.quote>

I seems to work in my city.  The ring road in almost all of my cities are more like Beltways, where they go around the entire metropolis as opposed to just the CBD (see Las Vegas or Dallas-Ft. Worth).  The point of those for me is to service areas of my region that otherwise wouldn't have access to a freeway...and also, as you said, to connect different cities that other wise wouldn't have a fast connection.

If I may be so arrogant, allow me to illustrate:

This is a region I plan on working on composed of 16 large cities (4 x 4).  The two red lines are where I plan on having Interstate-type freeways.  The purpose of the Beltway in this region, as I stated earlier, is to service most of those city tiles that would otherwise be very far away from the nearest freeway.  There may be auxiliary expressways scattered around the region as well, but these are the main lines for getting from one city to another.

That's how almost all of my Beltways work, in fact.  They go wide around the CBD to help provide rapid transit to the outer lying areas of the metro.  Usually they aren't far enough out to hit the far out suburbs, but they help increase the efficiency of the transport network within the center city.