Building new highways in a dense city

[SciTech 0]

 I'm pretty new here at Simtropolis, but I've been playing SimCity for a long time.  So hi. 

Anyways, I have a respectably sized city of over 100,000, and recently, high-density residential and commercial buildings have popped up everywhere. From the beginning, I tried to force traffic off the roads using buses, trains, and subways, but with all of the high-wealth people living in skyscrapers, they all want to drive. 

The main structure of my city is based around avenues. Commercial zones surround the avenues, and residential and/or industrial zones are in the other areas. The idea is to get traffic on the avenues, and thus increase commercial demand on the avenues. Here's what it looks like:

The problem now is that not everybody decides to use the avenues (even with the improved NAM pathfinder), and use the side streets. 

So I think what would be best would be a highway that passes through residential zones and deposits commuters in major industrial and commercial areas, and also the northern neighbor connection. What makes it difficult is...

 

a) Many commercial zones are facing the avenues, so highways can't be built on top of the avenues. 

b) There are many railroads and subway stations that go everywhere. 

c) The number of high-density buildings makes finding a good path without demolishing a lot of skyscrapers hard. 

Any recommendations?

Oh, and this is an overview of the entire city (it's the medium tile size)

[UltraGIR XL 3]

Hmmm... all I can really think of is using the Boston Big Dig set on the STEX to carry traffic under everything, but that wouldn't be best for being accessible to the commercial areas itself...

I suppose you could always put more high-density 2x3 sports across from high density residential lots, y'know, so they have a closer option.

I can't really think of anything else without major demolitions.

[halicem 16]

Hello SciTech, have you tried adding in one-way roads? Your city is pretty packed and its insanely hard to decide which buildings would have to be demolished. Aside from distributing the traffic and alleviate congestion, another benefit of using one-way roads is it helps potentially increase your CO$$$ friendly zones. With properly placed one way roads, you can force sims to travel through the center of the avenue block which often ends up dead because no one passes through it with just roads(sims try to get to the avenues right away to get home).

[SC4BOY 20]

There is absolutely no reason in a developed region to not just RIP OUT THE SPACE, put in what you want, rezone and rebuild. People fear this because they "tear up their precious stuff" but it's silly. It will redevelop quickly and, with some thought, it will be much improved over what it was before.

[Red1530 1]

I agree with halicem, one-way roads will help alleviate traffic problems.

[mightygoose 92]

im with sc4boy you can either demolish at will and it will grow back, or you can take the city planner approach and try and snake it though on the path of least resistance, but go for it dude, your city won't progress without any upgrades...

[830point35 8]

fill in your river front. Kinda like St. Louis or the old Embarcadero Frwy in San Francisco.

[SciTech 0]

I'll do both the one-way road and highway approach. The biggest problem is that there's a lot of railroads everywhere, and that makes highways difficult. I also think I made my blocks to small, so I have lots of 4x4 blocks to plow through.

[DanWalker8 3]

cant go wrong w. strategically placed subways...

[DCMetro34 576]

DanWalker8 is right. Place subway stations where people are majorly commuting is a great way to cut down on traffic. If you don't want to destroy buildings, subways take up the least amount of space.

[Darth Apple 54]

Almost all of my new highways in a urban area serve as bypasses around the urbanized part. If I must build a highway through the city, I usually go over avenues.

Hope this helps.

-blakesterville.

[TekindusT 3,809]

If I were you, I would rely on mass transport for this city. It is very packed, I don't see the point for highways. But if you want to lay highways; I would definately lay them in the place the avenues are. This means that all lots facing the avenue would have a nice "no-car" zot and demolishing and rezoning all affected lots may be expensive (playing without cheating).

Furthermore, in my experience, sims are really lazy and don't like taking highways very much. It is probable that, once you've got your system laid; anybody takes your highways.

[SciTech 0]

It appears that one-way roads solved the problem. I managed to divert traffic to the avenues, which eliminated most non-local travel through the residential districts. I couldn't find a good spot to put a highway without demolition of mass transit stations, rail, and civic buildings.

[plug 4]

I've never had any luck with the highway in a densely populated area to reduce traffic. I only ruin a bunch of my careful work to be disappointed by the results. One way streets will work for a while. Then try subway with many hubs.

Remember: You have to break some eggs to make an omelet.

plug

[ytr45 0]

I use one-way roads to alleviate the traffic problem but when I still have problems I would build subways they help A huge amount. Oh yeah but back to the actually problem It does not help, I would use avenues to have to have connections from the residential area to the industrial and commercial zones.

Current Project: Saint George

Tiles Occupied: 8/8

Capital: Hamilton Hight

Biggest City: New Project, Pop...881,210

[trojan_47 2]

Your city is also one big grid, you will learn to "encourage" specific routes by proper planing of your residential neighborhoods.

[MandelSoft 2,769]

You may also try to connect only the main roads to the avenue something like this:

Not only does it look better, but also it forces traffic to take the avenues, plus these avenues can be easily upgraded to highways.

[bigthing 35]

If you were to go for a highway option it may be a good idea that you use the RHW project. THis actually looks quite good in urban environments. Not only that but it is...

1. more flexible

2. easy to upgrade

3 you can have up to 10 lanes of traffic.

4. IT LOOKS COOL!

5.You can be very creative with it and create great intersections that curve around existing structures.

6.In the new version that is to be released you will be able to create a new series of slip roads.

Its your choice but i would definatly go with this.

[halicem 16]

@mrtnrln I just have to ask, what mod is that? the one that give right turning lanes for avenues? =)

[MandelSoft 2,769]

That

[halicem 16]

oh wow! ok, thanks for the preview! can't wait!!

[John-SJ 13]

If you decide you need highways in the future, you may find those "too small" 4x4 blocks have a nice use after all. If you demolish buildings between 2 streets 4 squares apart and run your highway down the middle, the enclosing streets are just the right distance apart for parallel on/off ramps to your highway.

[City Planner 121]

Originally posted by: SciTech

I'll do both the one-way road and highway approach. The biggest problem is that there's a lot of railroads everywhere, and that makes highways difficult. I also think I made my blocks to small, so I have lots of 4x4 blocks to plow through.quote>

I do neither.  If it really invollves tearing out huge tracts of buildings I simply start a new city someplace else and hope that I've covered all my bases the next time around as I just can't seem to pull the trigger to destroy huge amounts of buildings when trying to upgrade or add to my transport network.

[SC4BOY 20]

Originally posted by: City Planner

...invollves tearing out huge tracts of buildings I simply start a new city someplace else and hope that I've covered all my bases the next time around as I just can't seem to pull the trigger...quote>

There is no need to fear this. People confuse the difficulty of REPLACING with the initial DEVELOPING. They are not at all equivalent. Once the stage is set with the demand and other conditions (education, civics, etc) are in place, a city will WHAM JAM back to it's level again. Just for fun without saving, try going into one of your old, well developed cities and try it.. just whack out an area and let it redevelop.. you'll see what I mean. Once you understand that you need no longer be concerned about "pulling the trigger"  ... in fact you may come to enjoy it! 

[simplaya1234 0]

Originally posted by: mrtnrln

You may also try to connect only the main roads to the avenue something like this:

Not only does it look better, but also it forces traffic to take the avenues, plus these avenues can be easily upgraded to highways.quote>

HOw did you get that intersection texture??????

[bigthing 35]

Do you mean the intersection turning lanes?

That has already been answered

Originally posted by: mrtnrln

That´s the unreleased Prime Road Avenue Mod. A lot of work needs to be done before it´s ready to be released (now, it can only go straight)quote>

Its great to have curiosity but try to read on to find the answer.

[Nuclear550 3]

You should demolish buildings on all parts of your region to create an interstate highway. It help increase demand ten-fold. I suggest using the Maxis highway for this because RHW takes a long and patient time to build one single piece of highway. Otherwise thats your choice.

[iowndiscti 141]

so you dont want to dezone large quantities of your city to build freeway, yet you want to increase your traffic flow through you downtown?

why not use a little trick i call the SAN FRANGELES ( san fransisco + los angeles) freeway conjunctor. the best part about this trick is, if you have the nam, you are almost already to do this trick,

heres how u do it:

upgrade your selected route from avenue to freeway, right before the part of your city thats really conjested, downgrade the freeway into an avenue ( lettting major streets run directly into the avenue) during this time, run the GLR through the middle of the avenue, once the avenue makes it through the conjested part, then split the glr away from the avenue and turn the avenue back into a freeway, make sure u keep the glr kinda close so if you need to use it in a nother conjested spot you can.

this not only relieves traffic problems but also looks really nice.

in like 20 mins i will show you a picture

[jak73 0]

I'm with the One Way roads, also I have better luck with 6x6 blocks for RES and 8x8/10x10 Blocks for CO & IND

[robin9000 88]

Streets crossing streets, roads crossing roads are the number one reason you get pollution and traffic in your city. This is because they cause accidents and slow your commuters down. You need traffic to flow freely and quickly to reduce both on the amount of traffic and the level of pollution it creates.  

To ovoid making intersections create roundabouts. Secound of all when you have a railroad make sure to design your city where you have enough room in it to make the railroad cross over top of the road or under it. 

If you want to help improve the traffic in the city put more subways in. Make it so more people can take the train. Monorail is another great solution. If you create traffic using those 3 they don't count against you for your traffic level. I know because I created a city one time where there were no cars on the road. I had a perfect traffic record. Problem is that hurts the commercial districts.