highways are unused

[cybersite1987 0]

For all the schools I have in my cities, I sure have some stupid Sims. Long ago I installed a great freeway system with tons of access, leading from residential to commerical to residential to industrial, so sims can get to their jobs. But they don't use it. They pack onto side streets, roads and avenues. There is one road leading to a neighboring city with 10,000 bus traffic on it, and lots of cars too. The freeway right next to it is almost unsed.

Stupid bastards.

[Quzo 0]

This is a post I made in another topic about unused highways. It should still be relavent though it is it more about the use of public transport over highways and vis versa. Having said that you may still find it relavent and I have added an extra bit after this that is unrelated to this first bit:

Oh and just a note to save you a lot of reading. Have you downloaded the SC4 patch? because that has some tranportation fixes. i.e sims used to take the shortest route but not the quickest and the patch fixes that. This could be your problem. Try it with the patch.

Yes, Highways for more realisim but I also sometimes upgrade avenues to highways if they get too conjested. For larger citys highways are necesity but for smaller cities not so much unless you want to gives your sims and fast way (ease of use) to get to another city. Let's say you have one city with just residential zoning and you want to get your sims to the industrial area. Not only that but they are good for freight trucks and can serve as a relief road so they won't go on another road that would otherwise be conjested. As well as this you can try orbital highways as they are always good.

Of course if you want sims to take public tranport highways aern't always a good option because yes they can reduce conjestion but they can also, at the same time, increase the number of road users. Yes buses do use highways but I wouldn't advise you to place highways in places where you can easly get sims to take plublic transport. Having said that though you could try using highways as a form of BRT (bus rapid transit), this can be done by placing HOV lanes on any roads connecting to a highway. BRT is bacially bus lanes but the use of the road the bus lanes are on is recrited to only buses (and sometimes couches). These are good because they are faster than conventianol buses but in my opinion they are lazymans mass transit just like road top trams (trams systems that run on raods instead of on a new network). I belive HOV lanes can be found here:

https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?id=1834 and here: https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?id=3199 or here: https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?id=14799 Choose the cone that suits you.

I normally have a public tranportation system working along side highways so sims can decide which one suits their needs. Although I do try and have a good bus system to act a counter effect.

Highways are needed if you can't be asked to build up a decent mass transity system or if a lot roads in your city are getting to conjested to act as a relief road.

Genrally when I do place highways sims do use them especialy when they go across a river, sometimes to the exstent of conjestion (needs careful placing though for maximum usage). But as stated erlier you really only need them for neighbour connections and fast, efficient travel around larger cities (relief roads for ease of use and conjestion reducion) and city orbitals.

Try is as well if you want a good highway system its Lakeyboys 'multi highways' mod: https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?id=4267 Ovbiously you need NAM but I assume you already have that.

Hope this helps. I am no expert though. quote>

Aditionaly have you thought about the fact that road can turn into avenues and avenues can turn into highways. Not only that but 2 one way roads can turn into a highway or an avenue.

[Dizastrow 4]

Or you could "coax" them into using the highways.  Disconnect any roads,avenues, etc that lead to business and industry , and have the highway be the only means of transit to get to work.

[raildigga666 2]

"Or you could "coax" them into using the highways. Disconnect any roads,avenues, etc that lead to business and industry , and have the highway be the only means of transit to get to work."

Or to maintain the appearance of a functioning road, you can use the "road block" or "car pool only" road pieces. That would force those sims to jump on your deserted freeway.

[Darth Apple 54]

no reason to coax them... highways are only meant for long-distance commutes (imagine traveling three miles west to the nearest highway - getting on , then getting off a half a mile south ,then going three miles east again, when there were north-south roads all over the place! , thats why sims don't wanna do the same)

make use of them by using them to connect your metro area instead. like them being used to bring sims in to the inner city from the burbs.that's the way to make highway usage.(highways are better for long distance proposes.)

I Hope this helps , as usual.

[kevo80 0]

This is a highway related question. At one point, I was able to drag my elevated tracks over elevated highways, but I don't seem to be able to do that anymore since downloading a mod or file...I'm not sure which, it just seemed to happen one day. I would be a lot more inclined to use highways if they worked a little better in my city with my rail. Any suggestions? Thanks so much, guys!

[Haljackey 17,255]

kevo80: The newest NAM introduced double-height elevated rail and monorail puzzle pieces for all networks. Before this was just for elevated highway overpasses, and was draggable, but now you must plop them since they are made for every network.

Hope this helps!

Best,

-Haljackey