Commute time and demand problems

[mark1447 0]

Hey its me again!

Commute:

Pretty much most of my R/C mixed city is hitting problems with commute time.

I have about 106,000 population.

When i mess with the tax system most places go short and others go long. (Idk if this the case, but the tax for R are well below 6.5% same for C)

I have plenty of transportation, subway system, railroad and bus floating around both the city and residential area.

Demand.

There is HIGH demand for R$ / R$$ with R$$$ around 0, R$ below, R$$ going up and down the line and R$$$ , A/I/M/HT below the line as well.

(I already have a HT/M city, Dirty city and Farm).

Anyways.. Is there a way to get this fixed? Im not good with playing with the tax system.

I heard theres a MOD for commute time as well to fix the commute time issues??

Hopefully I can resolve this because otherwise, I may end up starting a fresh region with City / Residential only.

[Ltw 401]

Could you upload some photo's of your city and the demand graph?

[eggman111 8]

Are you using the NAM (Network Addon Mod)? The default traffic simulator with the game has been drastically upgraded when you use the NAM. The original game's pathfinding engine isn't optimized.

Honestly, commute time doesn't really matter. What does matter is if Sims can find a job to work at. A longer commute time will decrease desirability, but it's not that important when you compare it to other factors like city services.

[mark1447 0]

Could you upload some photo's of your city and the demand graph?

Are you using the NAM (Network Addon Mod)? The default traffic simulator with the game has been drastically upgraded when you use the NAM. The original game's pathfinding engine isn't optimized.

Honestly, commute time doesn't really matter. What does matter is if Sims can find a job to work at. A longer commute time will decrease desirability, but it's not that important when you compare it to other factors like city services.

Ill load up a photo.

And yeah I have the NAM activated, but the longer commuter is causing some of my homes to become abounded.. The commute is between 30-40

  Edited August 12, 2011 by mark1447  

[mark1447 0]

Heres a few shots of the city. Its not the best since im just doing it as a test till i get it right. If you also want the Industrial photos, please ask!

[Ltw 401]

I like your city!

Your city has one problem though. All your work-zones are located at the left side of the coast and all your residential zones are located at the other side. This results in a longer commute time (especially when your city grows) and a negative demand. You might want to consider building residential zones near the commercial zones. There will come residential buildings with a short commute time. When your city grows and people get older, they will need jobs (at least, when your age-graph is skewed to the left, that is also a graph you could look at). This way the demand in commercial/industrial jobs will grow and then you could build commercial zones on the other side of the river, this way you decrease the commute time of the people who live at this side. It also might be a good idea to replace residential zones with abandonment with commercial zones (when there is demand in commercial jobs).

EDIT: You mentioned taxes. What is important, is the fact that a lower wage will cause a higher demand. If you could afford it, I would recommend to lower your wages (for R$$ and R$$$). In this case you would have more costs than income. This isn't a problem in the beginning, if the demand rises, there will be more people who pay taxes. So the costs you make will be temporarily. However. You also have a positive demand in your R$. So it might be an idea to build residential zones first an when you have more income you could lower your wages for R$$ and R$$$. When you use it right, the taxes are a great tool to change your demand.

  Edited August 12, 2011 by Ltw  

[Piano Man 3]

This doesn't look difficult to solve:

Your city needs more poor sims. All I'm seeing is a ton of R$$$ and CS$$$/CO$$$, which will doom your city. I'm inclined to blame this instead of raw commute time because I'm seeing lots of commercial abandonment, while lots of public transportation systems.

Simplest solution: Demolish your abandoned R$$$ buildings and wait for R$/R$$ to grow. If you are lucky enough to get a high-rise R$ tenement, make it historical. Leave taxes alone for now.

It's really easy to get a high R$$$ population, but having highly educated R$ and R$$ is the best way to go. R$$$ jobs are 10% at most for any given business, but highly educated poor sims will keep demand up for $$$ commercial while not risking unemployment.

I'm not quoting a textbook, but I'm sure another member can be more specific if you're looking for hard numbers/ratios/demand calculators.

side note: keep in mind that residential located at or very near your map edge will have a much greater chance of working in that neighboring city. usually this simple border crossing will make all commutes longer than a hop and a skip be considered medium length.

  Edited August 12, 2011 by Piano Man  

[mark1447 0]

@LTW, Thanks =) and when i first started creating the city split, the commute time was under 1 and commute was short. Idk if thats what causes long commute. As for tax, would it be a problem to have all R to have the exact same level of taxation or will it cause an affection between each R$ / R$$ / R$$$?

@Piano Man, I have demolished some areas, but i dont see much growth of R$. What if I didnt have education for them, would it allow growth for them?

  Edited August 12, 2011 by mark1447  

[Ltw 401]

@LTW, Thanks =) and when i first started creating the city split, the commute time was under 1 and commute was short. Idk if thats what causes long commute. As for tax, would it be a problem to have all R to have the exact same level of taxation or will it cause an affection between each R$ / R$$ / R$$$?

@Piano Man, I have demolished some areas, but i dont see much growth of R$. What if I didnt have education for them, would it allow growth for them?

The reason that your commute time raises is that there are more people living in your city, this will cause more traffic which causes traffic jams. Since your 'supply' will stay the same it will affect the demand on R$ if you lower your taxes for R$$ and R$$$. People of these incomes will live in those area's after all.

Furthermore, about the question you asked Piano Man. If you make new zones less desirable to live in, it will get more people with a lower income. Not giving them education, health care, a bus stop every block, a park etc. will cause that there won't be any people with a R$$ and R$$$ income. Instead, the demand will cause that there will live people with a low income instead. If your demand of R$ is low, you will have to give them education, health care etc.

[mark1447 0]

@LTW, Thanks =) and when i first started creating the city split, the commute time was under 1 and commute was short. Idk if thats what causes long commute. As for tax, would it be a problem to have all R to have the exact same level of taxation or will it cause an affection between each R$ / R$$ / R$$$?

@Piano Man, I have demolished some areas, but i dont see much growth of R$. What if I didnt have education for them, would it allow growth for them?

The reason that your commute time raises is that there are more people living in your city, this will cause more traffic which causes traffic jams. Since your 'supply' will stay the same it will affect the demand on R$ if you lower your taxes for R$$ and R$$$. People of these incomes will live in those area's after all.

Furthermore, about the question you asked Piano Man. If you make new zones less desirable to live in, it will get more people with a lower income. Not giving them education, health care, a bus stop every block, a park etc. will cause that there won't be any people with a R$$ and R$$$ income. Instead, the demand will cause that there will live people with a low income instead. If your demand of R$ is low, you will have to give them education, health care etc.

So how will this work? I should raise the taxes slightly for R$$/$$$ to bring in more R$? But wouldnt that cause a problem to the R$$/$$$?

As for the 2nd one, if i leave education for all R, will it cause R$ to leave the city?

[jacksunny 741]

So how will this work? I should raise the taxes slightly for R$$/$$$ to bring in more R$? But wouldnt that cause a problem to the R$$/$$$?

The demand for R$$ and R$$$ would go down, but you could counteract it by rezoning some R$$ and R$$$ with R$.

  Edited August 12, 2011 by jacksunny  

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Take a look at some real small cities. You will often find that the main drag containing commercial lots often has a few residential at the ends of the road. Also, consider placing residential directly behind your commercial, and for industrial, next door. R$ will live anywhere, and being able to walk to work is rather an attractive idea, especially for poor Sims who do not have a car (and there really are some).

Cities in general are not pretty. Prettification occurs after the fact, usually. This may well require urban redevelopment. I wouldn't worry too much about how nice the city looks while you are initially building. After your pop gets over, say, 250,000 then consider how things look and how much it would be nicer if ...

Cities are often built in phases.

[eggman111 8]

Good points above. This came up on a recent thread.

It looks to me like you don't have enough jobs for your high-wealth sims. I always set high-wealth taxes high so that they don't move in so frequently. Cities can only support a small percentage of high-wealth Sims (just like real life). A large population of low- and medium-wealth Sims is normal. Consider using the bug fix for high-tech jobs, zoning some industrial and encouraging high-tech growth. With fewer R$$$ and more $$$ jobs, things will balance out.

As I mentioned before, commute time is not the issue here. As I've read from some of our transportation experts, with the NAM, any commute within the city will be marked as "Short". Any commute time out of the city (to a neighbour) will be marked as "Long". The only effect this has is on desirability, and usually it's not enough to make people move out.

The reason you see "Long" commute times within a city with the NAM is because the residents of the building aren't finding anywhere to work. Therefore, the simulator returns a value of "Long" for the commute, even though it really means people can't commute at all. Soon, residents will move out, as you're seeing. If you see "Medium" with the NAM, it means that about half of people are working and half aren't. Honestly, I just ignore the commute time graph with the NAM. The number is just an average of everyone's commutes. Because the commute time doesn't have a huge effect on Sims, it doesn't tell you all that much.

In short,

1) Get more high-wealth jobs

2) Have more low- and medium-wealth residential

3) Ignore commute times and just focus on whether people can find somewhere to work or not

[mark1447 0]

Take a look at some real small cities. You will often find that the main drag containing commercial lots often has a few residential at the ends of the road. Also, consider placing residential directly behind your commercial, and for industrial, next door. R$ will live anywhere, and being able to walk to work is rather an attractive idea, especially for poor Sims who do not have a car (and there really are some).

Cities in general are not pretty. Prettification occurs after the fact, usually. This may well require urban redevelopment. I wouldn't worry too much about how nice the city looks while you are initially building. After your pop gets over, say, 250,000 then consider how things look and how much it would be nicer if ...

Cities are often built in phases.

Wouldnt population drop if i start messing with design of the city?

Good points above. This came up on a recent thread.

It looks to me like you don't have enough jobs for your high-wealth sims. I always set high-wealth taxes high so that they don't move in so frequently. Cities can only support a small percentage of high-wealth Sims (just like real life). A large population of low- and medium-wealth Sims is normal. Consider using the bug fix for high-tech jobs, zoning some industrial and encouraging high-tech growth. With fewer R$$$ and more $$$ jobs, things will balance out.

As I mentioned before, commute time is not the issue here. As I've read from some of our transportation experts, with the NAM, any commute within the city will be marked as "Short". Any commute time out of the city (to a neighbour) will be marked as "Long". The only effect this has is on desirability, and usually it's not enough to make people move out.

The reason you see "Long" commute times within a city with the NAM is because the residents of the building aren't finding anywhere to work. Therefore, the simulator returns a value of "Long" for the commute, even though it really means people can't commute at all. Soon, residents will move out, as you're seeing. If you see "Medium" with the NAM, it means that about half of people are working and half aren't. Honestly, I just ignore the commute time graph with the NAM. The number is just an average of everyone's commutes. Because the commute time doesn't have a huge effect on Sims, it doesn't tell you all that much.

In short,

1) Get more high-wealth jobs

2) Have more low- and medium-wealth residential

3) Ignore commute times and just focus on whether people can find somewhere to work or not

Ok i will raise the tax for the R$$$.

1) Should i bother changing take for Commercial jobs?

2) When should I lower the tax for R$$$?

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

You can play tax games if you like, but the best solution is to slow up development of $$$ assets until you have the population and education levels for them. The Archimedes rule apples to this game (There is no royal road to success).

[mark1447 0]

You can play tax games if you like, but the best solution is to slow up development of $$$ assets until you have the population and education levels for them. The Archimedes rule apples to this game (There is no royal road to success).

So pretty much to get a big city, i dont need to mess with the tax (which starts at 9%)?

The education on my graph shows 160.

[eggman111 8]

Wouldnt population drop if i start messing with design of the city?

1) Should i bother changing take for Commercial jobs?

2) When should I lower the tax for R$$$?

If you add in cosmetic items after your city has developed, it shouldn't affect your population. In some cases, it might even help (say, adding parks).

Taxes directly affect demand. If you have demand for a certain commercial type hovering around 0, lowering the tax will often increase demand to a level where development is encouraged. If you have a large negative demand, though, changing the tax won't end up helping you because the demand will still be negative. Similarly, if you already have high commercial demand, there's no incentive to lower taxes. In fact, you could likely raise them slightly without a detrimental effect.

Personally, I like to have a prohibitive tax rate for R$$$ (say 12-13%) for the starting stages of my city. Once I've got a good base started, then I lower the R$$$ tax a bit (say to 10-11%) to encourage them to move in. I don't like to have R$$$ taxes lower than R$ or R$$ because then I find my city gets imbalanced too easily.

Another point is that the game has a tendency to upgrade to R$$$ too easily. This mod increases the desirability threshold for R$$$, which means that it takes a bit more for R$$$ to move in. It also means that they're less likely to move out since they move to better locations. Read the description of the mod for more information. Since I started using it, my problems with R$$$ got way better.

  Edited August 13, 2011 by eggman111  

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

You can play tax games if you like, but the best solution is to slow up development of $$ assets until you have the population and education levels for them. The Archimedes rule apples to this game (There is no royal road to success).

So pretty much to get a big city, i dont need to mess with the tax (which starts at 9%)?

The education on my graph shows 160.

This is my tax policy. If the city is profitable at year 4 I hike taxes on I-D to 20% to harvest them until they leave. At the same time, I lower I-Ag to 7%. After this change if the city remains profitable and there is good income, I drop all other categories by 0.2%. I always run balanced cities with all types of lots and Sims.

The slight tax cut increases demand, and I go from there. As profits go up I share them with the Sims by further tax cuts, which increases demand. I hardly ever get down to 6%. The next cut from 8.8 can easily be to 8.5.

[Androgeos 73]

What I like to do with recent cities is to mesh the residential and commercial zones together, such as "framing" three 6x7 blocks of commercial zones with residential zones.

Re-zoning some residential areas to commercial areas may be worth considering, especially if many of your Sims are experiencing lengthy commute times.

[mark1447 0]

Ok ive increased taxes on R$$$ to stop development. R$$ (idk if i should allow development or stop as well), R$ is taken a bit long to grow.

Heres a graph photo of my Jobs/Pops. Top is R$ second R$$ and so on. Pretty much i need to keep a balance with all these? One line?

If i increase jobs way over the R, would i still get longer commute?

NOTE that this graph does NOT include the HT / M and Farm / Dirty, those are on a diff city that is connected to my City / Home

HT/M = 26,000 (Mix in its own city) , Dirty = 23,000 (Own city) , Farm = 720 (Own city

  Edited August 14, 2011 by mark1447  

[fort wayne 0]

To chime in here, if you have to have R$ and R$$ in your city then how can you end up with all skyscrapers and a large city like so many players have?

And, why does R$ and R$$ have to do with lower wealth? From what I understand the RCI for residential only pertains to density levels not wealth?

Problem I have is that all of my commercial has low customers and eventually become abandoned. They are in a desirable area and not too far from residential so I assume they go belly up due to low customers. How to increase customers I have no idea. If customers is related to traffic I can do away with mass transit and force more cars on the road but then commute times sky rocket and they abandon buildings for that reason as well. Seems like a no win situation. I do run NAM but it appears there is still long commute times. Granted I have weeded out almost all low density residential in order to move to larger buildings and a more big city look.

[Ltw 401]

To chime in here, if you have to have R$ and R$$ in your city then how can you end up with all skyscrapers and a large city like so many players have?

And, why does R$ and R$$ have to do with lower wealth? From what I understand the RCI for residential only pertains to density levels not wealth?

Problem I have is that all of my commercial has low customers and eventually become abandoned. They are in a desirable area and not too far from residential so I assume they go belly up due to low customers. How to increase customers I have no idea. If customers is related to traffic I can do away with mass transit and force more cars on the road but then commute times sky rocket and they abandon buildings for that reason as well. Seems like a no win situation. I do run NAM but it appears there is still long commute times. Granted I have weeded out almost all low density residential in order to move to larger buildings and a more big city look.

There are also high-rise buildings which have R$$ and R$$$. You could also see that giving the people no education or other facilities results in buildings which have low incomes (R$). Wealth has something to do with density though. R$ buildings could have more people on the same block than R$$ and R$$ buildings. But the meaning of R$, R$$ and R$$$ is still focused on wealth.

You could increase customers with making the area more desirable. You could do this by making plaza's, getting good public transport, big roads etc.

If you are still having problems with this, maybe you could open a new thread in which you explain this problem (maybe post some pictures also).

[Sandis_van_Great 346]

I more or less belive that hes problom is that he was rushing with all the big towers, and that he builded residental so far from commerc, why dont you mix it? I normaly build commercial around main roads and houses behinde them, more or less like rl. And i have noticed that demolishing big areas of com and res alot of times help increasing everythng back