Mass Transit Advice

[GodBlessAmerica 0]

It is sad to say but i have not developed a city past 50,000 residents. Once the traffic gets bad, the high wealth residents leave and i have a bunch of black buildings which are an eyesore. So far Ive tried el rail, monorail, rail and used buses as a combo with all of them. I have NAM and roadtop mass transit.

Okay here are specific questions

1) how do i make people use my highways? They always use roads that I've built in grid patterns. Highways look cool and they are realistic (how many of us get on a bus to go to work?)

2) I understand wealthy people dont like buses, how do i transport them to the el rail station so they can get to work?

3) this doesnt have to do with mass transit. How do you get skyscrapers to form? My demand for high tech runs out REALLY REALLY fast and my commercial buildings always have "low customers" and eventually get abandoned. I guess what im trying to ask is, how do you normally set up your cities? I do I - C - R - C - I

[PrinceErik 0]

-basically you just need to understand the default pathfinder for SC4. its based on the amount of tiles it takes to commute rather then the amount of time. meaning that sims wont take the "fastest" way, they instead take the way with the least tiles. this is what creates congestion in a grid-type city layout. you can correct the problem by limiting residential road access so that they only use the system with the highest capacity (i.e. the highway) to get to their jobs.

-but in order to do this you have to divide you city in to districts. so, for example, in a residential district you would have a ghetto (R$) with a bus system, a high density R$$ and R$$$ with subways and avenues, and a suburb with a highway. these divisions would be linked to a farm/dirty industry section, a manufacturing section, and a high tech section. which would form the industrial district. then you would have a downtown district where commercial development would take place.

-R$$ and R$$$ prefer to use cars and subways. try creating a subway system that connects R$$$ to the downtown area and the high tech section. subway pedestrians will create customers.

-skyscrapers wont form until you have the congestion problem under control (or the pop. will taper out). high-tech demand is increased by higher level education systems (i.e. universities and colleges)

-that should help, but there are also a lot of mods that alter gameplay and if you reinstall NAM you can change the pathfinder device.

[GodBlessAmerica 0]

thanks for taking the time to reply.

In order to make districts, would i have to start zoning high density right from the start? How do i make sure the medium wealth or high wealth do not move into my ghetto? Will they just know not to move in because that zone is not connected to hightech jobs? Do i need to do anything more like limit the luxuries provided in ghettos?

[Tysons4 68]

build out before building up

[thingfishs 416]

also the basic ideal ratio is one half R one quarter C and one quarter I. By what you said in your first post I'm thinking you're not building enough R. And be patient, it takes time to get skyscrapers.

[slydishere 4]

There are taxi mods as well that will transport sims to and from work,,these work great, sorry i don't have a link but just search for one!!Hey GBA,,,don't forget to adjust your tax rate,,you can get hi-tech early if you rate is low enough..