Mass Transit

[Stormscape 8]

Now I seem to have run into a rather interesting problem; the rail system in my central city is TOO popular, and I need a way to take the strain off of it, as approximately 200k+ trips are made per day on it, in a region of just over 400,000 sims. Of course I'm dealing with rising commute times and I need some sort of way to get the Rich Sims to their jobs quicker. I was thinking I could put in Monorail, but do you guys have any suggestions on how to route monorail? I seem to remember something about certain wealth levels being prediposed to take Monorail but I don't know if that's fact or fiction in Simulator Z. I also have a fairly good running subway system, sparse enough not to bog down the Traffic Simulator but still exetensive enough to cover the downtown core. Would Monorail be my next step or would large scale urban renewal and avenues as far as the eye can see be the solution? The entire residential sector is a spaghetti mess of winding roads due to me making an honest attempt at realism for the older part of the city. Course that worked fine until the 60 story condos came.

So I guess it boils down to

Monorail project that'll displace a few thousand Sims

Large scale Urban Renewal Project in residential sector that will displace 100,000+ sims.

Which one would have a greater result?

[Legosim 14]

i dont see a difference in using monorails vs elevated rail other than looks, and i prefer elevated rail because it is also a subway

a lot of one way roads help with alot of traffic and avenues, and less intersections the better

[Stormscape 8]

There's no point in using elevated rail as it takes up valuble real estate. The only ones I consider using are Subway, Heavy Rail and Monorail. I'm just not sure if Monorail would actually help this however.

EDIT: In Simulator Z at least, Monorail speed is 250, the highest availible, which is why I was considering it. Passenger Rail is 200 at no congestion. Subway and El are 150 each, making El pointless eye candy imo.

[vershner 11]

Monorail is faster than the other types of rail. (in the default settings, not sure about Z)

It's supposed to appeal to the wealthier sims too, but I'm not certain this actually makes a difference in the game.

[Jezus53 18]

You can also through in an underground highway system by using the Big Dig mod, though, it would be very difficult to route since it converts road traffic into subway and you would have to some how go around your already existing subway lines without every connecting them, but is is an option.

Besides that, the monorail is probably your best bet or you can build another rail line to take the stress off of the already existing one. Those two are probably the best options for you.

[Stormscape 8]

Well so far I went with Urban Renewal first, with no transit improvments besides an Avenue right down the centre of the Residential Sector. Population went up by 40k even though around 50% of the re-built sector is still Stage 5/Stage 6 buildings. Traffic Skyrocketed. Rail Usage surpassed 100k on some stations >.>

I think my city is just too high density to not need Ultra, as 300k sims live in a single square kilometre. I'd make Hong Kong proud.

[Skittles075 0]

Use the Ninja Boulevard Kiosk subway/bus/rail station. It takes up only 1 square and can connect to nearly any type of mass transit system. This kiosk also has underground parking. It's worked wonders for my cities. The kiosk can be downloded at the SimCity 4 official exchange site.

[Jezus53 18]

Instead of the avenue you can put in a highway system to take a lot of the load. But that would require some demo for on-ramps and off-ramps, but it would be more efficient than the avenue.

[earwax_man 18]

Try sunken monorail, it looks better.

Monorail is used mostly by rich sims, but el rail is mostly used by poor and medium wealth sims. use both in a city. I tend to mix monorail with glr, sometimes subway.

The main point here is to figure out what works the best for you, remember that a mixture of transportation is the best option.

[danielcote 9]

I don't know I kinda prefer GLR because it can go on and off road so you don't have to demolish any buildings or parks or houses in more developed arias.