What Wrong With The Grid-System?

[sedimenjerry 1]

TV-VCR

you said it greatly. after all isnt that what bypasses are for?

nobody cares how much more space there is to develop when trying to get there is hell. look at atlanta. it's slowly choking it's business due to traffic problem.

having over 50 peachtree streets doesnt help either.

[IDS2 3,346]

In my opinion the grid is the most efficient, esy to use system there is. All those European cities with random streets have downright crappy planning for anyone who wants to know where theyre going. The American grids have numbers and letters and its much easier for everyone. Who cares if its boring? So long as its efficient and takes you from place to place.

[greg22 0]

I dont have the info on the 60% thing as I didnt save the work from school. Grid is alot easyer to design but my profs wont have it, I would get hit in the head if I did a grid system lol. With the grid system you use most of the land as road, and a roads dont make you money. So a "loop n cal de sac" or the actually name is called the RadBurn Model, this makes you more money and uses less land for roads, but its not the best for traffic.

[Unassigned 23]

http://www.lib.umd.edu/NTL/gardencities.html#radburn

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radburn,_New_Jersey#Radburn_as_a_model

[torontotransit 2]

The problem with grid, at least in real life is that the congestion goes down the street. That why sometimes there's those "do not block intersection signs" or the box thing painted all over the intersection. I actually see that a LOT in New York

[rusty_777 0]

The grid system really isn't hated. Maybe by us on Sim City because we are stuck in a default grids that seem to never ever end. However, in reality they are in almost every downtown because they can handle traffic well. There are easy to use and can be used using one-way roads running parallel to each other. Newer suburbs are build off the grid now to save developers space.

[greg22 0]

no subarbs do NOT build off grid to save space, they build off the RadBurn model to save space, the grid system takes up alot of space for roads, radburn takes most of the land with money making real estate

[Zarp 0]

Grids fill your city up with traffic signs, the city where I live(about 800.000 pop) downtown's is laid on grid system, dude, I can't stress enough how painful it is to move around with all those traffic lights even when it's not rush hour. That's why many cities adop the highways/big runways corridors, here in Brazil most of the cities are like that, even Brasília(country's capital) which was planned and built in the 60ties is like that. Not to mention it looks much nicer.

PS: Suburbs laid on grids ARE NOT unrealistic, many many suburbs are gridded, even on big cities(at least brazilians) like São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro, I live in a gridded one cut by a major highway, most of brazilians suburbs are like that.

[crazyjoo17 0]

I think that there are strengths and weaknesses to all of the ways of building. Considering that I've built up decent cities (and other people have as well) using both systems or combinations of the two, I think that there isn't a right or wrong. That said I favor a grid because it allows "straight lines" and simplicity. Another factor is that when city size and sprawl increase it's easier to tear down a straight line and put in, say, a highway through an area. This allows my city to grow efficiently and without wasted elements (highways to nowhere). On the other hand, a non-grid allows you to fit more into a smaller area and to fit the city in the terrain. I think that high-growth areas are the best places to use the grid system because you can easily increase traffic handling capacity in a grid.

[saltandsauce 0]

in a LOT of european cities, there are bigger arterial roads leading out of the CBD which lead to other places (originally roads) and no european cities have annoying dead end streets which are a NIGHTMARE if you are new to an area.

during the industrial revolution many cities developed areas with grids but with narrow streets and have little traffic even now.

of course these grids would grow in clumps and then another blob which means the grid isn't endless (so if you stood and looked along the street you would see a building instead of the horizon)

[josefmayor 8]

Grids work well when the lights are syncronized well and when there are lots of alternative routes. They do not work well when there are too many lights and they don't match up

In downtown Tampa they match up extremly well and traffic flows very nicely and rarely is there a traffic back up or grid lock in the core of downtown.

The main grid lock is at ONE intersection that is on the fringe on the Western Downtown boarder with river.

[Eagle John 0]

hi,
when it comes to grids I think it's just a matter of personal taste of the designers, not if it was very usefull or not.
for example take Amsterdam, in Amsterdam are many channels laid in a "cirkel" around the city center. as you can see on this image
http://cf.uba.uva.nl/nl/collecties/kaarten/image/img0050.gif
Amsterdam already had grids in 1655.
so in my opinion grids are very standard and boring indeed if you put them in one straight line,
however like my cities they have grids in a lot of different shapes and directions.

so, grids aren't ugly it's the way you put them

[piccboi824 1]

I find grids to be very efficent and easier to deal with than a street hierarchy system (suburban system). I mean when your residential demand is high and you need more workers for your commercial offices or factories, it is much quicker to plop a large grid of different block sizes than to make a bunch of winding roads and little cul de sacs that will end up lengthening your sims commute and causing tremenous congestion on your main artery. Increased congestion raises traffic noise and pollution which lowers desirability as well. Besides there are many different kinds of grids. I am taking more of a L'Enfant approach to grid design with my current city. It has many winding and diagonal main streets that criss cross through my basic street grid creating a mix of square and rectangular blocks with triangular and irregular shaped blocks, much like Washington DC's diagonal avenues and lettered (east-west) and numbered(north-south) streets. I find that this leaves one or two squares for bus and subway stops next to congested intersections and makes my city more organic while still being planned and structured.

[Olympian 1]

Personally, I believe the grid system is the most effecient way of developing land and in this day in age the easiest and most economical. In the game the grid system works the same way. I am not talking just make a complete grid, I mean of course put a few turns and diagnals in it but keep the main form. It was mentioned earlier that the grid creates traffic problems which could or could not be true depending on where you are. A city for example will have bad traffic with or without a grid, the grid just allows access to the high density region of a city. In the suburbs where the grid becomes more spaced out it is better in dealing with traffic because 1.) it can be used as connectors between major north-south-east-west arteries rather than the traffic being funneled through one thru-road and other side streets. When discussing this you also need to keep in mind that when developers built neighborhoods in the suburbs they rarly widen or change the main roads to help accomidate the new traffic, in fact you rarly see much more than a new shoulder or turning lane into the subdivision. I know I have said alot but, this is my opinion backed up by facts. I will admit the grid does have some disadvantages but, with it do come advantages. As far as the game goes many good points have been made about the problems with subdivisions and turny roads causing congestion. Making grids might be boring but, it's the best way to develope land and keep it cheap. I'm not saying to change what your doing but keep and open mind and try to understand the benefits of a grid system.

THE END