Why are people complaining about long commutes always?

[TheMachine66 0]

Okay...so i have a good city going...two regions..one with commercial and residential..another with industrial.  In each of my "neighborhoods" in the residential region i put 1 bus station and 2 subway stations, each within walking distance of all houses in the neighborhood.

So its going great...then when i reach a population around 4,500 people start complaining about their commute?!  You can walk to the subway station!!  The commute time is ~15 (mins i guess).

So what is causing this?  I mean their education is good...but they just refuse to walk  to the subway 3-4 tiles away?!

[Hahayoudied 3]

Do you have NAM installed? Without NAM, sims are very dumb with it comes to commute.....

[TheMachine66 0]

yeah i have NAM installed...not sure if im using it right or not...but yeah they just sit there when there is a subway station right down from them

[krbe 193]

You shouldn't trust "advisors". They're all in the pockets of the private sector, like the transportation guy, who get's paid under the table by car manufacturers and asphalt factories.

Turn them off. When you're in trouble you'll notcie (stalled development, dilapidation, abandonment, strikes, etc., etc.).

[dark_lord 555 0]

Yep like what krbe said

[redbull75 1]

You guys never answered his question. Commute times ruin this game, even with the NAM. A commute of 10 tiles appears as LONG, and buildings dilapidate. I've come up with every kind of transportation network/ zoning plans imaginable and commute times keep too many of my buildings vacant. Its the single worst thing about this game.

[TheMachine66 0]

yeah its what seems to always ruin my cities

[NetPCDoc 1]

Hello TheMachine66,

Please NOTE - without properly utilized mods (such as the NAM) in a best case scenario - only 50% of your commuting sims will take the first mass transit they encounter. SimCity 4 Sims, by nature, prefer their own vehicles. Certain Ordaninces (the shuttle service, for one) may affect the over-all percentage - but in no case will all of your sims agree to take mass transit.

Low Wealth ($) sims are more likely to agree to mass transit - but while some of these will accept car-pool-ing, others will prefer buses, while still others will want to take the subway, etc. Tip - (without mods) High Wealth Sims ($$$), that are willing to take mass transit, will prefer to take the monorail.

Putting in Civic Buildings (ones that provide jobs) near your residential neighborhoods will help some - by providing close to home jobs - and please note: some of the higher education (among other) buildings will provide some High Wealth ($$$) jobs.

Also - for transit stations that do provide jobs - some sim must work there before any sim may use that transit station; one of the reasons why it sometimes takes a while for your sims to start using a ferry port.

Hoping that this helps someone,

-NetPCDoc

No detail is too small to be micromanaged.

[krbe 193]

Originally posted by: redbull75 You guys never answered his question. Commute times ruin this game, even with the NAM. A commute of 10 tiles appears as LONG, and buildings dilapidate. I've come up with every kind of transportation network/ zoning plans imaginable and commute times keep too many of my buildings vacant. Its the single worst thing about this game.quote>

Then you're having other problems than just the commute. If 160 m of commute was the tipping point for dilapidation, one would never be able to make those sprawling metropolises. There are numerous factors affecting the growth of a city, but sims will complain just as soon as you reach a specific point, wether or not other effects counter this. To take a real life example: Most are complaining about their commute today, but things like work availability, the price of mass transit, housing prices, preferences and a host of other factors contributes to the fact that people live where they live.

When your city has a population of 4 500, it shouldn't really dilapidate; it should be abandoned if you do something wrong. Medium and high-wealth residents aren't making up the core of small cities, unless you have severeal other cities in the region to support it (and then they would only tell you that it's a shame that they'll have to work out of town, not that the commute is extremely long). If there are problems, you can always read the tutorials available at Simtropolis or SC4Devotion.

[dark_lord 555 0]

bla bla bla bla bla

[mougga 0]

I was wondering if you use the NAM from this site, do you have to do the update on simcity.com? I was having same problem. I also have problem with 100K residents, my residental keep saying medium school even though it shouldn't, which i think is causing abandonment.. I use large schools, fully funded, for my larger areas.. this is on a large size map

[simsmart 1]

Also, I'm trying to modify Simcity1.dat to allow commutes up to one hour, which is much more realistic. So far i havn't had much luck though.

[NetPCDoc 1]

Hello mougga,

The simcity.com update doesn't update the NAM - but it is highly recommended that you have the latest (simcity.com) update, before you try installing the latest NAM.

As to your school issue - this could be because of

1) under-funded schools;

2) too few (types of) schools, libraries and/or museums;

3) insufficent elapsed (on the game's clock) time for the schools to educate enough of your population.

simsmart: this is the wrong forum/topic for discussion of cummute modding; and I hope you are extracting (from Simcity1.dat) the file(s) you are attempting to modify, and then placing the modified file(s) into one of the plugin folders (as this makes it easier to un-break your game - should your modifications break the game).

-NetPCDoc

No detail is too small to be micromanaged.

[jdawg11 0]

yes even sims about walking distance from home to work, i noticed that commute times are long.... this happens when they have to travel to work and the road is inclined, meaning my ID-HT is on a higher ground.while freight trucks that have to cross a bridge to the nearest freight train station commute times can sometimes be short... is under 50 mins commute time in a city pop of 50,000 good enough? i've noticed that what once was an hour in average commute time was reduced by installing subways and bus stops at the most congested areas of the city.(avenues, arterial roads in suburbs etc.)

i think even if sims have to travel quite a bit of distance from home to work, as long as the commute times are decent, you won't see too much abandonments... subway networks or any other efficient mass transit can significantly reduce commute times...R$$$ are really picky though as almost all of them drive cars(a few take subways), thus commute times are long. it just takes some time for R$ and R$$ to learn to appreciate subways.... try the subway/bus stop waiting station combined instead of the usual bus stop beside the subway in a city block. works quite well for me. some stops have as much as 700-800 sims taking it at the most congested parts of my city..