Questionregarding Highways

[WBuffett 1]

Where would be the best place to put highways? Thanks in advance

[LuapYllier 8]

Where would be the best place to put highways? Thanks in advance

Well from what I am hearing there is a bug involved with sims liking to get in a loop and staying in it. With this in mind I would avoid any beltway type highway setups. I am thinking a setup with some various intersecting avenues or RHW multilane roads in the downtown area and then highways spreading out like the spokes on a tire out into the surrounding areas.

Also if you want to force your sims to take the heavier duty roads to travel then you should limit sims access to the areas that the highways go to except by the highways. Think of it like a tree and the highway is the trunk, the avenues are the major branches, roads are the smaller branches, and streets are the green stems that go to the leaves.

[z1 566]

Well from what I am hearing there is a bug involved with sims liking to get in a loop and staying in it. With this in mind I would avoid any beltway type highway setups. I am thinking a setup with some various intersecting avenues or RHW multilane roads in the downtown area and then highways spreading out like the spokes on a tire out into the surrounding areas.

This is the Eternal Commuter Loop, and it applies only to loops that extend across a minimum of three city tiles. Furthermore, the type of network used does not effect this bug. Beltways work fine within a single city, or even across two cities.

  Edited May 29, 2011 by z1  

[Mikeaut1 261]

Over the past few months I've been experimenting with highways and downtown areas. I find that the loop is the most effective in the core/CBD. Then highways branch out from that loop in opposing directions and into the suburbs. This helps transport Sims directly from the outerlying areas of the city into the city center itself. I find myself using Google Maps and studying certain cities and how highways are built. Dozens of large international cities on Earth are structured in similar ways - particularly with many of them having downtown loops.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Where would be the best place to put highways? Thanks in advance

Between cities.

If you need high capacity roads within a city and avenues are not enough, look at the NWM (network widening mod) which is an add on to the Network Addon Mod (NAM).

There is nothing wrong with a highway crossing a city with appropriate ramps. This is sometimes needed on a large tile if you are working suburbs with a main city on the same tile and you want motor transport rather than some type of rail.

If you use the Real Highways Mod (RHW) then you get these nice limited access highways with appropriate ramp structures (do it yourself ramps) that can be just fascinating. A lot of work but very pretty. This one also requires the NAM as a prerequisite.

Maxis highways also work, but you may want to find a mod to change their textures. The default gray concrete may not jibe with your plans for appearance.

  Edited May 29, 2011 by A Nonny Moose  

[SLagonia 68]

All of my regions have rather impressive highway systems - I take pride in them.

Anyway, I usually go with the US Interstate system when it comes to major cities - Beltways with spurs that connect to other beltways. For example - Green Island, a mostly agricultural region (which needs the highways for goods to move properly) has an inner beltway, an outer beltway and connectors which link the two. No stubs or sudden fade outs, just one pure system of goods movement.

South Main, the largest of my regions, does include some unfinished highways that I sorta cancelled during the building process for various reasons (for example, one was designed to connect a military base to a major city, and then that base was scrapped, so a small RH is just randomly left over), but it still has a very impressive system of beltways and connectors with intricate interchanges (thank you, NAM! ).