Usefulness of freeways

[Pengwuino 2]

I just do not understand freeways! I built a side city full of poor people and brought in a freeway and have buses everywhere. The freeway goes into a sizeable commercial only city and then a main city of about 150k.. No one really uses the damn thing though! Or well, only people somewhat close to the border. I also have a freeway going through the main part of my city and no one uses it. It seems like the sims don't want to go all that far for anything even with a freeway around. I thought putting a freeway going straight down my city would allow people who from the west side of the city where all the people tend to be go to the east side where I started a big commercial development. However no go. What could I be doing wrong?

I keep hearing people say that sims should "go by" commercial zones. I don't really understand that. It implies that they're traveling somewhere beyond commercial zones. However, my people mainly work in those commercial zones so they just seem to go right into it.

Any tips?

[quicksilver991 37]

In response to your first question, it could be that the commercial is not the right wealth level for the poor people. That, or there is a more direct route to the work district. Sims will take the route that has the least distance, not that has the highest speeds. If you want them to use the highway alone, make it so that is the only route to the jobs.

To your second question, commercial zones like traffic because in reality, that would generate sales. Sometimes Sims do travel somewhere beyond, but even driving in the commercial zones they will still drive by at least some of the buildings, generating high commercial demand desirability.

[Pengwuino 2]

I thought no matter what the commercial wealth is, they still need poor people for the lower end jobs in the building?

Also, the thing that was really a kicker about the freeway was that places started to become abandoned because there were no jobs. There were jobs in the neighboring zones but it appears that they were out of range. This makes even less sense because..... ok here's how my cities are.

I have my medium sized city of about 150k. Then there's two cities to the east. The top one of the ones to the east is the commercial zone, 22k commercial jobs. The bottom city was meant to be the poor commuter city. I brought the freeway through the commercial city to the poor city and into the main city. Now, I even saw people travel from the main city THROUGH the poor city and to the commercial zone. The area of my poor city that is full of abandons from having no jobs are connected to the freeway at multiple points so I don't really know how this works.

[One Rincon Hill 0]

The game looks for the shortest route, not the quickest route. It's a glitch in the overall design of the game, and unless you make it impossible for Sims to get to their destinations without having to take a freeway, they aren't going to.

[RABicle 9]

Yeah just kill all your intercity road connections except for the freeway. When designing suburbs have your streets lead into roads and roads lead into avenues/freeways. Any busy roads en route to the freeway could have a bit of light commerce or something.

But yeh I know in my cities the only time I've ever needed freeways is if I have limited options for a river crossing. It's much more cost effective using overly congested rail to move poor *****s around.

[Tysons4 68]

i almost always play simcity unmodded and have found that every tool serves its part.

highways are the best because they get traffic there and back without any stops.

make it the only connection to your neighboring cities and you will see them come to life.

and poor uneducated sims like to work in dirty industry or agriculture

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

You probably need to do some tuning with the trafffic simulation controller of the latest NAM, but everyone is correct.  Sims will take the "shortest" route in geography, not the fastest in time.  This is either a bug or a design fault, depending on how you look at ti, so you have to work with this limitation. 

Beware of the travelling-Sims loops.  Ferries are the near occasion of sin in that regard.  Seems they like the sea air, or something.  My big harbour project just got a case of the loops, and I am having to fix it.  This mostly consists of bulldozing ferries and examining what happens to the traffic so I can diagnose which connections are the real problem.  You will know you have it when a traffic overload ends at a ferry depot.

[svachon 3]

I use the NAM and I use subways, buses and avenues.  All cities are connected via subways and roads.  I have a cities of over 150K and no major road congestion issues ever. 

I see no reason to ever use a highway.  Am I wrong??

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Originally posted by: svachon

I use the NAM and I use subways, buses and avenues.  All cities are connected via subways and roads.  I have a cities of over 150K and no major road congestion issues ever. 

I see no reason to ever use a highway.  Am I wrong??quote>

No.  I seldom use them either.  Limited access, restricted zoning and they take up a lot of land.  I only use them if I get an overload in the traffic division, usually on a neighbor connection.  If I do put in a highway, I usually also have service roads, sometimes OWRs. 

For in town, I far prefer the NWM if I exceed the capacity of an AVE4 (Maxis avenue).  In recent times I have used only one MAVE6 when I had to fix an overloaded AVE4 between two major parts of the city, and then I laid it down parallel to the AVE4, and both are fairly well loaded.

[Timmystwin 201]

My simulator has 300mph subways so avenues are all i really need.

[svachon 3]

Originally posted by: A Nonny Moose

Originally posted by: svachon

I use the NAM and I use subways, buses and avenues.  All cities are connected via subways and roads.  I have a cities of over 150K and no major road congestion issues ever. 

I see no reason to ever use a highway.  Am I wrong??quote>

No.  I seldom use them either.  Limited access, restricted zoning and they take up a lot of land.  I only use them if I get an overload in the traffic division, usually on a neighbor connection.  If I do put in a highway, I usually also have service roads, sometimes OWRs. 

For in town, I far prefer the NWM if I exceed the capacity of an AVE4 (Maxis avenue).  In recent times I have used only one MAVE6 when I had to fix an overloaded AVE4 between two major parts of the city, and then I laid it down parallel to the AVE4, and both are fairly well loaded.

quote>

Sorry but what are OWR's, NWM and MAVE6???

[trar 336]

Not even the NAM? SimCity 4 is a crappy game without it, take it from a guy who played for years without using it.

[LivingInThePast 364]

Well, where is the freeway located? In real life, some highways (such as Interstates) are in a town but because of where people go the Interstate isn't practical for in-city traveling at all.

[bigthing 35]

Doesn't Simulator Z fix this problem?

[Linoa06 1,374]

Heh, search and download the NAM. It fixes a LOT of glitches concerning transportation. (If you put a grey street, and a freeway a few tiles longer, from zone A to zone B, the sims will ALL use the shortest route - the street. NAM fixes this.)

Highways are especially useful in linear development, I dare say. You could also build your grid so that (talking with NAM installed) the local suburban grids connect to the highway. Without NAM, make the highway the ONLY way to access the zone. With it, you could put streets in between grids, most Sims won't use it.

[mightygoose 92]

some above comments are correct, for a freeway to be used effectively it needs to be the quickest route from A to B for a sim. you can do this by mlimiting the routes from job centres to residential centres or you could just make really windy streets and roads in between.

[Timmystwin 201]

If you download the NAM, get the traffic simulator editor thingy. Then you can have a custom simulator, and it will allow you to make ALL sims choose the fastest route. (So my 300mph subways i mentioned earlier really help)

[unorthodox 0]

I just build them to make a more real city, even though they're not being used at all.

[avrelivs 24]

i think highways (in the 'real-world') are designed mainly for 'THRU' traffic. meaning traffic that is traveling longer distances without stopping. but, in terms of the game, traffic only needs to get from point A to point B and the always find the closest job available. but with the advent of the RHW mod, a freeway network obviously isnt useless...but i find that you have to design a freeway system that controls commuters rather then just giving them another route option.

[quicksilver991 37]

Originally posted by: svachon

Sorry but what are OWR's, NWM and MAVE6???quote>

OWR= one way road

NWM= Network Widening Mod

MAVE6= medianless 6-lane avenue, can be found in the NWM.

[Linoa06 1,374]

In many cities they're used for through traffic, indeed. Now what if the closest jobs are already occupied? Simcity 4 might have been built with centralized building in mind, so that commercial jobs typically and gradually become farther from residences, therefore putting an option for through traffic.

Something that would change the job choosing pattern might add even more realism. Most of my highways are anyways used at full capacity. But my grids, between my cities, and into them too, are deeply irregular, so often it ends up the fastest route.

[avrelivs 24]

@Balth3465 ---that's true, definitely, but i think you're getting into regulating residential areas by wealth level, which from my experience can be difficult..

but, for example, imagine you have a tile with farm jobs available and a residential area consisting only of low wealth workers. if you develop a R$$ and R$$$ area and build a highway with interchanges connecting commercial districts to the R$$/R$$$ areas most likely the higher wealth sims will commute on the highway to get higher paying jobs. but separating residential by wealth class is not easy. just a thought...

[Cob92 360]

Build the residential areas far away from the commercial and industrial zones. Offer as little mass transit as possible, and make sure that no one walks. And if that doesn't work, bulldoze all side streets so people are forced onto the freeway.