Highways/Railroads help

[GodBlessAmerica 0]

I never have used highways and railways in my city before mainly because of how they take up so much space and how they are hard to place after you have grown your city out. But now that i want my cities to look more real by having elevated highways in them i would like to know what is the most efficient way of placing them. I want to use highways in large cities (100,000+). my city here which has 200,000 is in a gridlock fashion and the traffic isnt that bad because i have lots of subways. although i like the realism of highways. prefer to use highways rather than rails though. (what modern city has railways running through it?)

[GodBlessAmerica 0]

Oh i thought i uploaded my image of my city but i guess i couldnt since the maximum file size is 1mb and it was 1.5mb. Well just go from my explanation of the city and maybe if you can post some pics of your city that has highways or rails in it. thanks a lot

[krbe 193]

Use Photobucket or Imageshack for pics.

Originally posted by: GodBlessAmerica. (what modern city has railways running through it?)quote>

All of them, though large parts are tunnelled. A "modern" city cannot be built on cars alone anymore, and the train is unbeatable over short distances (less than three hours / 1000 km with faster trains). In reply to your question though, motorways have to go from RES to COM areas, and from RES to IND areas. In addition, it has to be the shortest rout between two points. I.e. no beltways, only direct routes.

[masochist 111]

krbe is right: nearly every modern large city has railroads that run through them.  In America, it's mainly the largest cities that have passenger rails for the busiest/most popular parts of town, but almost every major city has rails for freight because most cities were built around them.  Look at Google Earth for almost any city (Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, etc.) and you'll see that there are rail lines that run right through the central portion of the city. 

In SimCity 4, rails are used the same way: to haul freight and carry passengers.  You can use freight rails in industrial areas, and they'll use it as traffic (which in turn will help keep your industries in tact).  Passenger rails, elevated rails and subways are means to keep your streets semi-clear.  The more your sims use the rail, the less they use their cars, which means you have less traffic and pollution.  Very beneficial to a burgeoning metropolis .

As for expressways, in SC4, it's the most efficient route that the travelers will use, so again, take krbe's advice: straight from Res to jobs.  In real life, there are beltways that circle around the main CBD, and auxilary freeways that help relieve traffic or funnel traffic to use only certain thoroughfares, but SC4 usually doesn't really take that into account.

This picture is about the best I can do right now:

At the bottom of this picture, there are suburbs.  The people who live in that neighborhood take the freeway to get to the commercial area because it's faster than taking streets (I mean that literally--sims can cover the same distance in less time with freeways than with avenues or roads, and that factors heavily when deciding which route to take).  From the north, those living in the high-density area can take the freeway south to a commercial area that's not in the picture (or to the beach...there are jobs there, too).

[SamJam 9]

Your city looks great masochist (what we can see of it, anyway...)

What beach/water mods did you use? I think it's a real plus to not see the edge of the beach underwater, I always hated that. And you have the beachfront developed wonderfully, too!

[Retep Molinari 68]

This makes me think... can someone post some photos of great ways to place the rail in industrial zones? I'm not sure I am maximizing the oppertunites.

When not using stations, what's the zone tile depth for just running rail to industrial lots?

[Randomtaskk 1]

I only started this city today so it isnt finished yet (still to add in el rail over road puzzle pieces) and subways but the majority of the sunken highway and tram avenues are in place.

[Randomtaskk 1]

Originally posted by: GodBlessAmerica

 (what modern city has railways running through it?)quote>

Every single one of them.

[SockoJr53 51]

Retep Molinari: It may seem like an inefficient way to lay rail as far as SC4-game mechanics go, but I like to add little rail spurs off my mainlines to service the local industries. Realistically this is what industries did (when America still had industries and railroads). It does actually work though, if an industry is touching the rail it will use that over trucking it on road 100% of the time.

[Retep Molinari 68]

Originally posted by: SockoJr53

Retep Molinari: It may seem like an inefficient way to lay rail as far as SC4-game mechanics go, but I like to add little rail spurs off my mainlines to service the local industries. Realistically this is what industries did (when America still had industries and railroads). It does actually work though, if an industry is touching the rail it will use that over trucking it on road 100% of the time.quote>

Thanks Socko! I've done this sort of thing before, but I wasn't sure how deep the zone could be. Any ideas?

[Death Reaper 0]

I try to don t use highway or use it in the exterior part of my cities. I prefer the alternative of bus, subway(underground and el train) and train instead. My bigger city on this kind of city buiding have 320 000 citizen....a lot of medium grow residential and some dense spot...I don t have any sector that its unifonctional so there s a lot of pedestrians I m studying in Urbanism so i most apply it haha and love it

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

Originally posted by: GodBlessAmerica

I never have used highways and railways in my city before mainly because of how they take up so much space and how they are hard to place after you have grown your city out. But now that i want my cities to look more real by having elevated highways in them i would like to know what is the most efficient way of placing them. I want to use highways in large cities (100,000+). my city here which has 200,000 is in a gridlock fashion and the traffic isnt that bad because i have lots of subways. although i like the realism of highways. prefer to use highways rather than rails though. (what modern city has railways running through it?)quote>

Actually, not counting underground rail, Melbourne. Only 3 stations are completely underground.

[Jatsc 1]

Originally posted by: Randomtaskk

Originally posted by: GodBlessAmerica

 (what modern city has railways running through it?)quote>

Every single one of them.

quote>

Not entirely true most cities have the rails and highways underground. In the case of rails most of the time they are underground in varies cities and go up to ground level when they are on the outskirts of the city. Sort of the same with highways they are usually undergound in the center part of cities and never surface but have on and off ramps leading to other highways or to streets that come above ground.

Most trains at one point did run through most cities but not mostly run beneath the cities underground

Im gonna take some American cities Boston, NYC, Baltimore, DC, Philly as examples with Amtrak

In Boston Amtrak is underground or below grade level at portions

In NYC its underground in Mahattan for the most part

In Baltimore Its usually below grade level, other times its in tunnels underground and once in a while above street level on viaducts

In DC the train enters in an area that is just trees crosses a river at a low elevation travels behind buidlings that use to be distribution centers, sometimes is runs parrell to the road, some times below and sometimes above once they enter the station they go underground under the capital and national mall back up for like a block and a half where a commuter station is back underground until it reaches the border where it goes onto a bridge and crosses outside dc limits

In philly depending on where in side of the city limits it can be found underground or ground level.

[aaaling 83]

Originally posted by: GodBlessAmerica

I never have used highways and railways in my city before mainly because of how they take up so much space and how they are hard to place after you have grown your city out. But now that i want my cities to look more real by having elevated highways in them i would like to know what is the most efficient way of placing them. I want to use highways in large cities (100,000+). my city here which has 200,000 is in a gridlock fashion and the traffic isnt that bad because i have lots of subways. although i like the realism of highways. prefer to use highways rather than rails though. (what modern city has railways running through it?)quote>

For highway aperances, I'd recommend the HRS here:www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm

[trojan_47 2]

So HOW do we make the underground highways and railroads?

[Randomtaskk 1]

Learn to google. In the same amount of time it took you to ask that you could have had the answer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtOn2SD5WHo

[1111nick 1]

ok in one of my citys i used the underground rail under a road and you can put above ground/normal rail stations and they will stil work

[Deathcat001 8]

There is one known city without subway, rail, and a proper bus service.... Canberra.

It was desinged for car usage and cars still dominate the prefered use of transportation. Canberrra has a population of 400,000 and it covers 814.2 km² (314.4 sq mi). There was origanly 2 railways going to cooma and sydeny but the cooma rail was abandoned as it took less time to get there in cars. So canberra is a rapidly growing suburban city without rail, subway, and a good bus service. 

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

Well Canberra is not big enough for a subway service, although a metro rail would be good. And a regional rail link to Melbourne.

And is the bus service really crap up there? I know the Melbourne one is shoddy and the trains also. What you need, is TRAMS! They work here. Where about in Canberra are you?

[bigthing 35]

Originally posted by: ROFLyoshi

Originally posted by: GodBlessAmerica

I never have used highways and railways in my city before mainly because of how they take up so much space and how they are hard to place after you have grown your city out. But now that i want my cities to look more real by having elevated highways in them i would like to know what is the most efficient way of placing them. I want to use highways in large cities (100,000+). my city here which has 200,000 is in a gridlock fashion and the traffic isnt that bad because i have lots of subways. although i like the realism of highways. prefer to use highways rather than rails though. (what modern city has railways running through it?)quote>

Actually, not counting underground rail, Melbourne. Only 3 stations are completely underground.

quote>

Liverpool-3 underground stations

London- less than 50% is underground