City Expansion

[Mikimoto26 1]

Right now, I have a series of little port towns in my region.

But, I would like to expand these little towns.

I have expanded this little village with that pod of residential to the north, but already I'm getting some traffic issues because of the set up. I wanted to keep the roads separate by value. Highways that connect to avenues, that connect to main roads, that connect to pods of residential.

I have those 2 pods of residential connected to that main road that goes directly to the industrial area.

I'm looking for a good way to expand this little town that will not lead to major traffic issues.

Any suggestions?

[Cobraroll 138]

The road going down on that image can be expanded to an avenue. Or you can have your main throughfare (going left-right) be an avenue.

Though, your industrial area is a little too close to the rest of the settlement. Whatever you build will be influenced by the pollution from there, eventually.

I assume you have the NAM? The roundabouts there, as far as traffic goes, is Mod's gift to NAMkind.

[Mikimoto26 1]

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

If you want to really do waterside towns and ports, I strongly suggest you look at the Pegasus site. In particular you should look at the CDK, CDK3, and CDKM sets of modds. In general, I find this a great site for specialized items associated with coastal development. You may also find the SPAM (farming stuff) on that site to be useful, but do be aware that the SPAM controller conflicts with the NAM and should be omitted. There are also useful terrain and water modds to be had there.

Example:

  Edited December 11, 2011 by A Nonny Moose  

[Dizastrow 4]

Whatever you do, make sure you incorporate bus stops into your cities. This helps with traffic no matter what.

  Edited December 14, 2011 by Dizastrow  

[Kirkland22 5]

Whatever you do, make sure you incorporate bus stops into your cities. This helps with traffic no matter what.

This is not always the case, at least from my experiences. In my largest city, I placed about four or five bus stops in various places around the city, and they barely ended up getting used by more than a few dozen Sims. And it did almost nothing to help the traffic problems; my decision to build a network of avenues around the city did.

[Mikimoto26 1]

So no matter the direction of expansion, place high capacity avenues in a ring around the outside so it can lead sims to the area with the most jobs? hmmmmmm I should try this

[Kirkland22 5]

So no matter the direction of expansion, place high capacity avenues in a ring around the outside so it can lead sims to the area with the most jobs? hmmmmmm I should try this

I detect sarcasm. What I mean is that it was helpful to lay out a network of avenues in what would become the heavily populated areas of the city instead of roads. There's nothing worse than laying out a ton of roads in your city, zone all the land around them, and when it gets crammed with people, you can't establish avenues without demolishing structures along the way. 'Course, it's a plus for commercial to have tons of traffic…

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I have found that with small towns and villages bus transportation is unnecessary. What adding buses does to a town is that it encourages growth into a city. Some cap is broken, and when I place a bus system throughout one of my bigger towns, there is an immediate redevelopment of larger buildings. I use rail between towns.

I guess it depends on what you want in size of town.

[CoastRunner 24]

At the moment, your town is still relatively small. Are your main issues with traffic on the left-right road itself, or just the intersections? If it is the left-right road entirely, then I would suggest turning that into an avenue. Most likely the combination of all of your workers going into the industrial complex and all the freight leaving it on the same road is too much to handle. If it is just the intersections, I would use roundabouts as mentioned previously to cut down on the congestion. If it really is that bad, then I'd use a combination of both.

It really depends on how you want your town to look, whether you want to gradually increase the population and capacity to suit current needs, or to preplan for whatever you're doing later.

[Mikimoto26 1]

So no matter the direction of expansion, place high capacity avenues in a ring around the outside so it can lead sims to the area with the most jobs? hmmmmmm I should try this

I detect sarcasm. What I mean is that it was helpful to lay out a network of avenues in what would become the heavily populated areas of the city instead of roads. There's nothing worse than laying out a ton of roads in your city, zone all the land around them, and when it gets crammed with people, you can't establish avenues without demolishing structures along the way. 'Course, it's a plus for commercial to have tons of traffic…

Not sarcasm. I actually should try putting high capacity roadways around the city. Typically I've always put one avenue straight down the middle leading to the jobs.

[EyeofMobius 27]

In my small town developments I have found a great use with RHW single lane highways. This may be related to me having a small residential core with a commercial vein or two surrounded by expanses of farmland but streets and roads connect nicely to the highway and keep a great deal of traffic under control. Only the intersections get a little sticky but thats when I upgrade to the roundabouts; barrring the success of roundabouts I troubleshoot other ideas after I look at my data views.

[Kirkland22 5]

So no matter the direction of expansion, place high capacity avenues in a ring around the outside so it can lead sims to the area with the most jobs? hmmmmmm I should try this

I detect sarcasm. What I mean is that it was helpful to lay out a network of avenues in what would become the heavily populated areas of the city instead of roads. There's nothing worse than laying out a ton of roads in your city, zone all the land around them, and when it gets crammed with people, you can't establish avenues without demolishing structures along the way. 'Course, it's a plus for commercial to have tons of traffic…

Not sarcasm. I actually should try putting high capacity roadways around the city. Typically I've always put one avenue straight down the middle leading to the jobs.

Oh okay, sorry. Oftentimes on the Internet people counter my posts with similar wording as your original post ("so no matter [situation], [positive thing happens], wow, I should try this") with sarcastic intention. Hard to explain.

Avenues are great for downtown/CBD transportation as well as in a ring around the city. I recommend both. Some people like to place highways and railway systems in a ring around the city, which is fine too, but I like avenues since they're just so much easier to expand from IMO. My major point is, definitely reconsider placing nothing but roads in your city, because sooner or later they may get jammed pack and your transportation advisor will be griping about it endlessly until you're ready to implant your knuckles within your computer monitor.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

With respect to the transportation advisor, play on hard and you can ignore him as his messages only appear on the ticker. Sometimes thinking ahead when planting a facility that will eventually attract a lot of traffic is a good idea. I recently had a mess with a road along a long set of port warehouses that just happened to be a the bottom of a steep hill. It took a lot of civil engineering to get an avenue in there ex post facto. This particular tile has a problem insofar as there is a port inlet that kind of divides two sections of the town and the only connecting route is along the port docks. Whoops!!

As for ring roads, I don't do that because I don't plan cities that finely. My towns just grow like Topsy.