Freeways and Interchanges

[wjgmouse 0]

I have seen some postings regarding the ability to "shave" lanes off of freeways to create local/express type conditions.  I was wondering if anyone could give me the finer points on this.  Also, I have a city of over 350k, region size 2.9 million and have no traffic issues except for this city.   I have connected the subways and euro busways to the point that in the underground mode you cannot see a gap in the pallet, its nothing but subway/busway tubes, and have placed every type of transportation offered for my sims to aleviate the problem.  However, it doesnt take long before I have to start building even more freeways. Commute times will go down to around 30 minutes before spiking again at 80-90 minutes, even with transit and road expenditures maxed out.   I am playing an unrestricted game (using lots of tricks and downloads) so demolition is not a problem.  But I would like to see if there are any other freeway segments, and interchanges.  I already have the additional cloverleaves, and the 4 level interchange plugins, but was wondering if there were more.  I could really use an elevated double deck structure if one exists, so I could place them side by side in the most congested area (high density area with a neighborhood population of over 125,000) The Big Dig options might work, but I havent played with the plug-ins enough to understand how they work and what their dependencies are.  Any ideas

[sim_city-freak 0]

this might sound obvious but u can use the NAM which comes with double decker structers such as el rail and road GLR in avane underground rail road (i find underground railroad kind of pointless cause there is already subways right) plus where what is 4 level interchange is in NAM? if no what is it other than being a interchange and were u get it

[MiniMark 7]

sim_city_freak if you press TAB through the interchanges you can cycle through all of them until you find the one your looking for. However make sure you have NAM installed to get it to work. Any questions please send me a Private message

[wjgmouse 0]

I have played this game for a while now, but have not tinkered with the some of the expansion tools much (this started out being a thing to do on a graveyard job I used to have) but apparently have the NAM tool installed since I have the varying loop interchanges and the four level as well. For those of you who are not aware of this, there are some alternate ramps for your freeways, but, um, I can't remember where I got them I do know that I did download them from this site. However.....I just cant remember how I did it, or what download it was ......ADHD does a real number on your memory sometimes...LMAO. But good news!!

Traffic problem solved with the city. A bypass of the crowded neighborhood that looped around, and fed back into the main freeway system resolved it. It did require a major rework of the pallet. I was able to save the residents, but really pissed em off when I started the massive demolition. Business and Industry rework mainly, but I ended up having to build an island offshore to accomodate some of the ramps, and to save several high wealth residential high rises. It did give me a new beach front and some extra high rises (medium wealth) that also appear on the new land areas I built. City pop is now pushing 500,000 and commute times are holding steady at about 35 min. I found that when the city gets over 350k, an almost constant upgrade/rework of subways, busways, bus stops is necessary (at least in my situation) to just maintain. In order to fund a lot of things I also used the 4billion dollar open area plug-in, but after getting the funds credited for two months, I blew it up. In the past, I have had cities corrupt due to using this plug-in too long. Besides, even if you turn off all normal city funding, it takes a while to run thru this much cash!! Even then, all you have to do is re-build it for a month. Have fun all!!

[wjgmouse 0]

Replying to my own post----(har dee har har...lmao)

One thing to consider when placing interchanges and cloverleafs.  The 4 level takes up a lot more room than the cloverleaf.  the play area it takes up is almost twice what the standard cloverleaf does.  I use the 4 level and the cross directional interchanges ONLY in the remote areas of my larger cities.  they handle a ton more traffic, improve freight movements and long range commuters better city access.  I use the cloverleafs in residential and commercial areas as much as possible.  Also, the suggestion I have seen posted previously about building avenues that have regular roads parallel to them as local lanes, (using the avenue as express lanes) helps out if you are not ready to build massive freeway systems.  Build the avenues with as few crossings as possible to allow traffic to flow.  I have one set up like this that crosses one of my larger cities and it handles more traffic than the downtown expressway (in this city, all the freeways feed into one mainline downtown) expressway)  does.  I did put up toll booths at the city edges to push outbound commuters into the underground.  It kept the crossings flowing much better for freight and inbound commuters. 

PATS RULE......THE DREAM IS ALIVE!!!!!! 16-0

[Haljackey 17,242]

Well, wjgmouse, if you need further examples of how to use road/highway and transit networks in your cities, then I recommend that you check out the Show Us Your Interchanges! thread. There is a direct link to that thread in my signature, as well as other useful transit links as well. I hope it helps!

Best,

-Haljackey