Urban alleys

[ldvger 19]

I just downloaded a beautiful custom region Heblem made for me of the greater San Francisco metropolitan area and am anxious to get started on it but, after playing with the out-of-scale game default SF region for almost a month now I have come to realize a big lack in the game...urban alleys.

I have a post (made today) over on SC4D in the 3RR project that covers my thoughts in full, so I won't repeat myself here, but I am wondering if anyone has given thought to creating urban alleys?  I have been through the STEX here and found some lots that will work, kinda sorta, so it's not like I am totally without the tools I'd like to use.  But as good as the various download/plop alley lots are, none of them really work as RL alleys.  I think the best I found were disc_error's "Commercial Access" lots, but they leave something to be desired as well.

Some of the items on my Urban Alleys wish list:

1.) transit enabled, but at extremely low volume, with preferance to garbage and delivery trucks. 

2.) single one-way lane

3.) stops signs at intersections with roads/streets/avenues

4.) transtion apron between the alley and the street/road/avenue it intersects.  In RL these are like driveway cuts, with radiused edges meeting the greater right-of-way. 

5.) puzzle pieces of 1x1 cell each, so the alleyway landscape (such as it is) could be varied.  Dumpsters are an obvious feature in alleys, but often there is limited parallel and pull in parking, as well, not to mention access to parking stuctures both above and below ground. 

6.) able to be matched up end to end (something I have read is not easily accomplished using transit enabled lots)

I know all the BATers and LOTers and MODers and coders have tons of other, more important projects to work on, but really, the urban alley is a huge part of any/all major metropolitan areas and to not have an honestly workable alley to use makes it difficult to create realistic cities. 

Just a thought.

Lora/LD