Bus/Subway Stops 'on the road'

[usfwoody 3]

I am horrible at preplanning for subway and bus stops for later use when the city pop gets to a point where mass transit is necessary.  I have been seeing various 3rd party content where the stops are a part of the road and dont take up an adjacent tile.  Are these functional?  Are they just CJ eye candy?  I just took a look at RTMT and it seems right up my alley but I wanted to get an informed opinion.  Thanks for your help.

[nthooze 13]

They indeed work. Just one catch they will block street frontage access to the adjacent tiles. This only causes problems to lots that are only one tile wide. So when placing these lots be sure to put them on a section of street adjacent to buildings 2 tiles wide or more. Or in front of parks etc.

[Bealystock 0]

They are about all I use until my pop gets to the point I need more capacity. Even then I just change them out in high use areas. I normally place parks in front of them, the parks help raise the desirability of the area and reduce pollution. The other trick is to place them near intersections were they are on the side of the lot that faces the other street. Other good places are in front of schools, libraries, hospitals & ect. (Buildings that don't change sizes.) The problem I have had with the 2 wide lot method is that as the city grows and shrinks, sometimes the 2 wide shrinks to 2 * 1 wide lots and one is blocked.

[Cob92 360]

Actually, they don't block lots. I have them in front of buildings all over the city causing no problems at all. I pretty much stopped using the regular bus and subway stations after I discovered RTMT.

[CaptCity 4,753]

Originally posted by: Cobhris96

Actually, they don't block lots. I have them in front of buildings all over the city causing no problems at all...quote>

You may have just been lucky so far. They will not totally block a lot that has more than one tile of road/street/avenue access. However, single tile-wide residential lots will be blocked on either side of the station (as others have mentioned). If the lot has more than one tile accessing the road/street/avenue, then it will still have access 'around' the station location. You can check this by zoning a single residential tile wide lot adjacent to a RTMT station. You will see a no-car zot.

It should be noted that commercial lots act a bit differently and 'appear' to function, but no Sims will be able to work there. However, since this only affects smaller lots, it wouldn't have much over-all effect in the game as the city grows and larger lots develop.

There has also been some really interesting discussion on the path-finding effects caused by the RTMT lots (if you're interested in that kind of thing). For the most part, if you don't over-use the RTMT stations, the effects are practically non-existent.

usfwoody...

As others have mentioned, the RTMT stations function as the real thing and, in my opinion, are usually more realistic than those off-street stations. And other than the minor drawbacks that I mentioned above, the benefits far outweigh the negatives (again, my opinion).

One note: If you use some of the combo bus/sub stations, you might find that they don't function quite right in certain situations. It is something that will be fixed in an upcoming version. For now there is a simple work-around you can do if you come up against it.

You can check this thread to get most of the common questions about RTMT answered. Hope it helps...

[nthooze 13]

Originally posted by: Bealystock

They are about all I use until my pop gets to the point I need more capacity. Even then I just change them out in high use areas. I normally place parks in front of them, the parks help raise the desirability of the area and reduce pollution. The other trick is to place them near intersections were they are on the side of the lot that faces the other street. Other good places are in front of schools, libraries, hospitals & ect. (Buildings that don't change sizes.) The problem I have had with the 2 wide lot method is that as the city grows and shrinks, sometimes the 2 wide shrinks to 2 * 1 wide lots and one is blocked.quote>

the lot being redeveloped can sometimes get you indeed.  I'll at times make the building historical if i get a spot that keeps wanting to rebuild like that.

[Martin892 4]

These lots make it much easier to create new bus lines quickly without cutting lots adjacent to the road off (whats the case with regular bus stops, they are also huge buildings comparing them to real world bus stops). I also use the on-road subway stations because subway lines running straight below roads and avenues are more realistic. I never build underground subways in low-dense residential areas (unrealistic) so the 1 tile abandonment issue never occurs in my city.

[TimeMaster 4]

Yes they do work, however not in front of one tile wide stuff like others have said.

I hope they fix that issue.

[DreamSlave2112 0]

I did have a problem with RTMT crashing my game. Anyone else have that problem?

[CaptCity 4,753]

DreamSlave2112...

Yes, it is usually a good idea to start a new thread when the question you have is different than the original one. You'll probably get a better response.

Concerning your crashing problems... Are there any stations in particular that seem to be giving you the problem? It is possible that you are touching stations with some of the NAM pieces - that might lead to a crash. Let us know...