Commute Time

[HomerSPC 22]

How do you keep Commute time down and keep buildings from being abandoned? In almost all of my neighborhoods I get many buildings abandoned for commute time. Theres usually Commercial zones, Mass transit (subway, etc) or a highway right next to them and they still get abandoned. Can anyone give me some tips for this?

[HomerSPC 22]

haha Trigger finger. Thanks, I'll try that once I get my newest sunken highway up. I still could take more advice from people though

[ididntdidit 0]

Well sometimes there are not enough jobs (or no jobs at all!) available or close enough to your sims. The reason it says commute time is so high is that your sims will drive around all day searching for a job hense this "search" being considered a commute. Simply just zone more jobs near your neighborhood with high commute time or just plow that neighborhood and zone that entire area as commercial (or industrial).

[manubeas 0]

basicaly what he (above) said and keep an eye on the traffic jams on your streets. Hope that helps

[HomerSPC 22]

I've tried that, and I have zones of different commercial aound my residential - Alot of empty squares in there too. But still, people are too stupid to get a job right across the street.

[Dukat 2]

If you zoned new commercial areas, it might take a while until people realize that there are jobs across the street. Might also be that someone coming from the opposite side of the map has taken the jobs. The pathfinding seems to be linked with the clock, not with the calender. Pathes are even calculated when the game is set to pause. Therefor you cannot enforce pathfinding by running the game with higher speed.

If you're using the standard commute coming with the game, people will not travel more than the distance of a medium city-map, even on a large one. If they travel to an adjacent city-map, they will only move half a small city-map there to get a job. I'm just learning this the hard way. I started a new city in a new region with large city maps. While my residential area is in the west of the city, my industry is far away in the east. But people refuse to travel across the map. They seem to refuse to attend any jobs that are more far away than probably 100 tiles. Which is rather rediculous, as 100 tiles are about 1.6 km or only 1 mile IRL.

Oh, and let me add this: My commute time is about 50. So, a low commute time doesn't seem to have any influence on this.

[HomerSPC 22]

My commute time is 30, I have all my Commercial/Residential packed neatly in blocks in a corner of a large map. Theres a highway that leads from the furthest area, which is about half the length of the large city, and theres even Commercial on that end between the highway junctions.

[Livin in Sim 83]

Hi, Bluejayfan94,

Welcome to Simtropolis.  Just out of curiosity, do you have a lot of high wealth mansions and other residentials, and are they the ones that abandon?  They tend to develop before there are really enough jobs and the right conditions to support them.  High wealth Sims also avoid mass transit except for highways.  To avoid this, I try to limit high wealth by raising taxes and using the Make Historical check box in lot queries to keep low and medium wealth lots from upgrading.  Please let me know if this is not the case and I'll try to help pinpoint the problem.  I imagine you're using the NAM?

Enjoy the game.

--Liv

[HomerSPC 22]

Originally posted by: Livin in Sim Hi, Bluejayfan94,

Welcome to Simtropolis.  Just out of curiosity, do you have a lot of high wealth mansions and other residentials, and are they the ones that abandon?  They tend to develop before there are really enough jobs and the right conditions to support them.  High wealth Sims also avoid mass transit except for highways.  To avoid this, I try to limit high wealth by raising taxes and using the Make Historical check box in lot queries to keep low and medium wealth lots from upgrading.  Please let me know if this is not the case and I'll try to help pinpoint the problem.  I imagine you're using the NAM?

Enjoy the game.

--Livquote>

 

Thanks for the Warm Welcome. Love the site

I'm well past the stage of Mansions, and already are into Condos and Apartments. I downloaded a couple hours ago the Radical ordinance mod, and my sims have gotten smarter. I have short commute times everywhere, so I guess they weren't smart enough. Theres plenty of room for the high wealth people to drive about. My Subways and Elevated rail take most of the congestion.

Thanks for the help anyways, but I haven't gotten an abandoned building in over 30 game years.

PS - NAM was the very first thing I downloaded when I registered here

[Livin in Sim 83]

No problem, glad you're enjoying the site.    For future reference, what I said about high wealth residentials does apply to high density building such as apartments, high rises, etc, as well as low density mansions.  You'd think Sims would commute better if they were smarter, but AFAIK, education level of Sims doesn't affect commute times.  It will allow some nice high tech industry to develop, so if that happened, it may have helped with jobs.  At any rate, if your abandonment has stopped, whatever was causing it must have been resolved, so that is great news.

Have fun.

--Liv

[ididntdidit 0]

Not one abandoned or dilapidated building in thirty years. Wow I don't see a problem with that. But you have to remember commute time graphs are average commute times you can't isolate it for a single area. So while the average of people have a short commute your problem area is the one with the long commute time. I generally only use the commute time graph if I'm testing out mass transit's effects on an area

[Lampala 1]

What really bothers me is when my sims move in BEFORE they get a job. And then I have to deal with a bunch of abandoned houses. I don't know how to stop this. Just get a job and then move in!

[Dizastrow 4]

What I like to do is place commercial within my residential areas.  

For example, instead of building large residential ONLY areas, I zone a section of residential and then commercial right next door or within the same city block.  

So my cities usually consist of TWO sections:  Industrial, and Commercial/Residential.

[HomerSPC 22]

I do the same. I usually have my Commercial outside of my residential, but still in the neighborhood. I also put in a central commercial block or two. I haven't have a problem since I downloaded the super demand mod, so I'm good now.