Remove the avenue median!!!

[frogface 352]

If you go onto the RH website and watch one of the old Videos you can see an avenue being built. it hasnt got a median just a painted yellow stipes and the concrete barriers. Thats what id rather see than totally redoing the avenue to have turning lanes which  i dont really think id use. The video is interesting tho because it shows some of the old stuff.

[El Effe 5]

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On 11/2/2003 10:16:15 PM DarkMatter wrote:

Avenues with medians are actually much less frequent in the average city than avenues with a center turning lane. In the some 10 cities around where I live, there are a couple main central avenues that are only partly separated by central medians, and the rest is a turning lane. All the other avenues in these cities have no median, just a turning lane. In general, in the cities around where I live, only the higher-wealth areas, generally the higher-wealth residential areas, have medians. Lower-wealth areas and areas of higher commercial activity have turning lanes.

 

The largest problem with making turning-lane avenues is that they shouldn't replace the existing median avenues. They should be an additional option. Since we don't yet know how to add our own network types, we can't do this. I personally like avenues with medians in my residential areas, but I would rather have avenues with turning lanes in my commercial areas.

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In my hometown roads that run N-S are callled streets. Roads that run E-W are called avenues. Construction-wise there is no difference in them for the most part. I live on the corner of Fayette Avenue and Third Street. Fayette is also US 40, a 4 lane highway and Third is also US 45, a 2 lane highway. I live downtown and am literly the first house in the city. Recently the State of Illinois bought my front yard so that turn lanes could be constructed on the two highways. There are no median strips on any of the avenues in the city and there still wont be after the proposed highway construction is completed.

[Biekko 2]

As I stated in an earlier post, almost all 4-lane+ roads in Iceland have medians, the below picture is pretty much how all multi laned roads look like.

And here we have the proposed future layout of the main E-W artery in Reykjavik which is going to be moved few hundred meters to the south to move the traffic away from residential areas.

My explanation of this extensive use of medians is probably that we simply have much more space here than in many other cities.

[1C1X1 0]

they are realistic, just depends on what city you live in, Ive lived all over the country, some places have them some dont. In real life I like it better when they do have them, in cities without them people tend to just drive down the middle lane like it is a lane. In St. Pete FL there are places to cross other then at major intersections every so often there will be a turn in lane with an opening in the median and its up to you to cross there without a light, the cross streets have stop signs. It was a rarity to have traffic backed up at any of those turn ins, certain ones would every now and then.

[primus7 0]

where i'm from (massachussetts/rhode island) one state (i never remember which) has a state-wide ban on u-turns of any sort... both states way over use the "no left turn" sign. and we have our share of the standard 4-lane undivided road, jersey-barrier ave, grassy noel-barrier ave (boulevards), the whole lot... one thing you see quite frequently are the jersey jug handles... i love em and wish there were something in simcity to build one and mandate no-left-turn...

for those who don't know, a jersey jug-handle is a right hand turn, almost like a highway exit, except for an avenue, and it then loops back in and crosses the ave at a perpindicular intersection.

Since avenues are designed as higher traffic roads, they want to keep the speed on them high and they want to stop the traffic as infrequently as possible, but when the roads get too congested for someone to smoothly make a uturn and merge onto oncomming traffic (and i don't know about all-y'all, but here in southern new-england, ain't nobody stopping for nothin unless they have to... so there's no "please let me go" around here... you either force your way in or you sit there until rush hour is over)... there has to be a way to keep the ave from getting perminantly backed up for hours waiting for people to make their left turns... i got a little sidetracked there... but since aves are designed for high through traffic, the frequency of people coming onto the roads or u-turning is (by design) much less frequent than the people trying to continue straight... and so a simple motion sensor light at a pair of jersey jug handles services u-turns on a median ave MUCH smoother than left lane u-turns.

as a side note (almost knowing it's impossiblity factor) it would be awesome if you could click on an intersection and select the style of traffic light... standard time, timed delay, sychronized, or motion sensored... i also wish that you could continue with a grid pattern on either side of an avenue, lined up with each other for the roads i DO want to go through can, have all the roads on either side of the ave intersect with the ave with street buds, WITHOUT having the streets cross the avenue... like so: horizontal, ave first verticle crossing street, second verticle non-crossing street....

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finally... what would also be super cool would be road & street avenue over-passes, much like a ground-level highway... a pedestrian overpass would rock too...

[jt_144_2004 0]

Here where i live in South Dakota we have 2 lanes in each direction and in the center there is a turning lane for both directions so u are able to turn into res. streets without having to put stop lights in, and this is always in the center lane down the

http://www.asdk12.org/depts/transportation/safety/4_lanes_with_turning_lane.gif width=360>

whole length of the avenue.     ( Ignore the stop sign and the bus this is off a trafic website teaching where u stop for a bus .)

[Trolca 15]

I wouldn't mind getting rid of the medians completely for avenues. If you want a median, you can always use two one-way roads.

[joe_dirt 2]

personally i dont care about the paths, i just want a suicide lane on my median, if not that then at least put turning islands in the middle. but ya, i could do without the path rules, i just want my avenues to look bigger

[Andrew Barchifowski 0]

I would like to see a turning lane. Gots a question.

What is a MOD?

[vester_DK 477]

Well first off: Check out the dates of the previous post. It's over an year old.

Second: Turning lane is made and is include in the Network Addon Modd (NAM).

Mod/Modd stands for modification.

Well this site is undergoing an update at the moment, so the NAM can not be download from this site, but from stnam.com.

BTW: Welcome to Simtropolis. Hope you enjoy your stay here.

[jeffypop 0]

I have to say... no matter where I have been in North and South America -- be it Canada or the US, Venezuela even -- I have seen 4-lane roads without medians. The term "avenue" only means "a wide street or thoroughfare" usually lined with trees. To some, an avenue with a median is known as an official boulevard. To some, in New York and Toronto, avenues run east and west, cutting across the roads and streets. Maxis should have given people the option to built up to six-lane roads with or without a median. It adds more character when ritzy neighborhoods have pleasant "avenues" with trees down the median, and plain commercial drags have six lanes of hot, searing concrete.