Show us Your Interchanges!

[lowbart 2]

Update on the interchange on the last post... development and traffic have certainly increased.

That cluster of high rises just off the highway towards the top left of the picture is interesting to me. I don't know if you're going to build all around this area. In any case, clusters like that are pretty common around the greater Washington DC area (where most of the expansion is from the last 40 years) and are kind of a pet peeve for me. They don't seem to make sense from a city planning perspective. You can often only access them from the highway, and they're usually bought and built up all at once, usually in a huge bid to one developer. They end up being overpriced "luxury" apartments and contrived, touristy shops and restaurants (usually all mid-to-high-brow chains). My problem is that I'm biased toward towns that develop organically because people have some reason for being there. That's why cities tend to grow at crossroads and harbors and river mouths. They're not just plopped down in some marginally accessible place because it looks nice and the land values are high/low. But this is how a lot of modern satellite cities form. One example near DC is Fairfax Corner, which is an area of about 6 by 6 blocks. It's around the same size and land value as "Old Town" Fairfax, the core of the actual town of the same name, but the difference is that Old Town grew up at a crossroads more than 150 years ago and expanded, and Fairfax Corner is way out in the inter-town sprawl area and popped up in the last 20 years. Fairfax Corner has permanent residents, restaurants, a movie theater, bars, tons of clothing stores, even a central plaza with holiday celebrations - but it's all in the same pseudo-old-town brick-and-glass architectural style and has no personality or history whatsoever.

I'm not criticizing you. In fact, I think it's cool that you incorporated this interesting feature of modern city development into your game. (Also, I really like the way you did the winding roads to get up the steep slope). I just wanted to rant about modern city/sprawl development for a while.

  Edited June 5, 2012 by lowbart  

[Haljackey 17,398]

@ lowbart actually I rarely build like that, but the rough terrain and interchange placement resulted in something like you are mentioning. I am a strong believer in strongly interconnected communities. I do not plan on developing much more of that hilly area.

EDIT: check out my (award winning) CJ/MD for good examples on my planning styles: http://sc4devotion.c...hp?topic=3340.0

  Edited June 6, 2012 by Haljackey  

[Christos Alabalistos 3]

Also, building freeways through a city center is a bad idea overall. Not only do you have not a lot of space, but alos you'll get a lot of noise and air pollution, which is something citizens don't like. Therefore, most (newer) freeways are build around cities, and development tries to keep distance from it.

I've told this quite some times before and it looks like I'm repeating myself to get my point clear...

Best,

Maarten

Amen

[Haljackey 17,398]

Anyways small update. Click images for full size.

I just turned this

into this

...Although I had to ditch a pair of smooth MIS curves for the widening.

[lowbart 2]

@ lowbart actually I rarely build like that, but the rough terrain and interchange placement resulted in something like you are mentioning. I am a strong believer in strongly interconnected communities. I do not plan on developing much more of that hilly area.

EDIT: check out my (award winning) CJ/MD for good examples on my planning styles: http://sc4devotion.c...hp?topic=3340.0

I see. Sounds good to me. Your CJ/MD is really interesting!

[freshballin365 32]

Here are several pictures of interchanges from my recreation of Greater Los Angeles. If any of you are familiar with the San Fernando Valley area in L.A.,the first and second photos feature the intersection between the 101 Frwy & Van Nuys Blvd, the third - 405 Frwy. & Burbank Blvd., and the last three of the 405 and 101 Frwy. interchange. As you can see, the city isn't built up yet and two connections of the latter interchange aren't completed. Once my RL-imposed break passes over, I'll show some images with more development and traffic. Hope y'all enjoy them.

101 Frwy. & Van Nuys Blvd.

405 Frwy. & Burbank Blvd.

405 Frwy. & 101. Frwy.

  Edited June 7, 2012 by freshballin365  

[WiiGoGetter 65]

I got SC4 to work on steam so I remade this interchange

Into this

Much better isn't?

[DavidB_ 83]

@WiiBowDash: Not bad, but the next step is RHW

[WiiGoGetter 65]

I made the switch to the RHW just before My SC4 stopped working. I got it to work again and here's my best 2 interchanges

i 94 and MN 252

And the north interchange of i 394 i 94 and i 335

here's most of it

And here's the other part of it

[Haljackey 17,398]

Very nice freshballin365! I really like the Burbank junction! That must have taken a lot of time to study and build.

---

As you may or may not have known, I have started to make 'highway widening' videos on my Youtube channel. They're not tutorials, but rather just clips showing how I make my highways and interchanges.

In my most recent video, I undertook widening a highway in a dense environment which also descends from a hill. Here is a 'before' mosaic.

Believe it or not, click for full resolution!

...And here is the widened highway. Again, click for full size.

---

Other points of interest.

The main interchange before and after:

Before:

After:

Hilly junction:

Widened RHW overpass

To see the process of how I widened the highway check out the video (polishing features came later).

Anyways hope you enjoyed it!

-Ryan (Haljackey)

[Charlie_Zane 963]

Great video Haljackey! I'm guess 3 buildings were just too tall to get out of the way? haha

[facebooktwittergoogle 3]

Hilly junction:

Widened RHW overpass

2 great pictures

[nathanthemayor 1,263]

First time in a while here. A new interchange, located along Hwy 55 in my CJ:

[Haljackey 17,398]

I've only built one Maxis Highway since 2010. I'd like to show it's evolution over time, reacting to nearby growth.

Click images for full size.

Initial construction

Upgrade to east-west highway

Overpass added

Nearby growth

Road widened to avenue

Additional ramps constructed, making it a 'half-diamond' interchange.

Additional ramps constructed, making it a 'three-quarter diamond' interchange. This is the current setup.

As you can see, traffic and development have built up over time, and I've had to react accordingly to accommodate this growth.

This may very well have been the last Maxis Highway I built. Not sure if I should feel happy or sad. The RHW has come a long way, but I'm not sure if I can say good bye to a network I have used for nearly 10 years.

[b22rian 153]

we need more like this !

where all the stages of construction are shown

well done Hal.

[Tarkus 6,933]

Haven't built one since 2007 . . . I phased out my last one when RHW 2.0 (released Jan. 1, 2008) was still in development (as you can see, the whole area around it is torn up in preparation):

That's a blast from the past. Didn't use a slope mod back then, either.

-Tarkus

  Edited June 13, 2012 by Tarkus  

[WiiGoGetter 65]

I choose that interchange type due to the smaller interchange in the pic and even my mind is blown away by it When I look at it. I made it so there's no weaving to

  Edited June 13, 2012 by WiiBowDash  

[kj3400 178]

Tarkus: That long, eh? I built my last one in '10 I think. I've been slowly phasing mine out. They may be all gone in 2013, maybe

An extended diamond I made a bit ago.

[Ion_Cannon 677]

Nice interchanges everyone

Bit of a mess and it's using MHW, but there is something about this interchange that I really like.

[Haljackey 17,398]

Very interesting designs guys!

@ ion cannon: nice work... I made a design like that a while ago. Can't really spot too many differences.

Click for full size

[Lucario Boricua 7,049]

How about a simpler but better landscaped interchange: This is a dumbbell (diamond with roundabouts in place of the at-grade crossings) that serves as the main entrance to the town of Playa Granante:

@ Ion Cannon: Maybe is its resemblance to this?

This is a stack interchange in Shanghai--it's just about the closest I've found when it comes to similarity to the MHW stack interchange.

[Indiana Joe 1,752]

Lol @ Ion Cannon and Haljacky

I think I remember making one like that a while back too.

[Moonraker0 193]

405 Frwy. & Burbank Blvd.

I just saw this one. I really like it because of the good eye-candy lots and the large avenue and highway. It looks very realistic overall.

@Haljackey, Ion_Cannon: I stopped using the Maxis highways a long time ago, but I do miss that 4-level stack above all else. I've tried a few times to make one with the RHW (4 levels with sunken tunnels, raised ground and flyovers), but with the current version the slopes make them way too huge to be space-efficient in a city and I always end up changing it to another type of 4-way interchange. It seems, however, that a new RHW release, perhaps the next one, is going to make building complex things like stacks much easier.

[simlink 1,098]

I stopped using MHW a long while ago, not sure exactly when. Maybe '08-'09, but by 2010 for sure. Haven't had to phase it out, though. I haven't ever really dedicated a long amount of time to a region, except for my CJ. So if MHW still exists, its because I don't play the region. Might be fun to go back to one of my long abandoned regions and fix it up.

[Tarkus 6,933]

I suppose I do have some really old regions sitting around on a hard drive I pulled out from my old desktop that have MHWs in them still . . . but those date so far back that the RHW didn't even exist when I created them.

I suspect once concludes (which is planned for the next NAM), there will be fewer MHWs out there yet.

-Tarkus

[simlink 1,098]

I suppose I do have some really old regions sitting around on a hard drive I pulled out from my old desktop that have MHWs in them still . . . but those date so far back that the RHW didn't even exist when I created them.

I suspect once concludes (which is planned for the next NAM), there will be fewer MHWs out there yet.

-Tarkus

Definitely, that will be really cool. I always enjoy what's being cooked up in RHW development, always cool to think how I will reconstruct some of my more inefficient interchanges as future versions are released. Great work!

[Haljackey 17,398]

Speaking about Maxis Highways, This came up in chat today:

Click images for full size

I want to make the interchange full access, so I'm proposing something like this:

Or this:

(City not saved)

Does that ruin the look of the area? They seemed to like the intersection by the overpass that had OWR on one side and the slip lane. These alternatives would demolish them.

[b22rian 153]

No i think its fine..

As i told you in chat sure we were hoping you could save

those beautiful buildings...

But i really dont see how you could and obtain the transit goals you seek.

[Cob92 360]

Only way to save those buildings would be to change the alignment of the main highway to allow the exit ramp to squeeze into the gap alongside the buildings. The other solution would be to have the ramps connecting to the avenue on the opposite side of the overpass from the buildings.

[Wiimeiser 452]

Or make a new prefab *shot*

On the subject of prefabs, was the T-Stack coded into the base game?Which RH addons were simply dummied out in the base game?