Avenue "Y" intersection

[lhrob 213]

Has anyone ever used an intersection like this in a city you've created - and will it cause a traffic nightmare? I realize there is an Avenue Y Stack puzzle piece available, but it won't fit...unless, of course, I totally rip out a whole section of town that I just got done remaking.

[DCMetro34 576]

I've used it; it's no more of a nightmare than any other three-way avenue intersection. It all depends on how much traffic it has.

[poshbakerloo 186]

I don't think the Avenue Y stack junction actually does anything extra, just more just for looks.

[Ganaram Inukshuk 906]

Something worth noting: The AVE Y-stack is like every other prefab: A single-use puzzle piece that is simply underscaled and therefore unrealistic. You don't use an interchange like that to "switch" traffic between surface streets. It's also an eyesore for residential development, and if you look at the AVE Y-stack, the flyovers are far too narrow.

If you're one for realism or if you simply don't wanna demolish any more development, I'd recommend avoiding the Y-stack.

[lhrob 213]

Cool. Thank you so much. You each answered my question completely. I'll just go with the intersection as shown above.

[mattbuildsbuildings1234 18]

I would say convert some regular roads near by the intersection into one way roads according to the direction of the road. I helps localize the passing by traffic away from the intersection.

[Haljackey 17,305]

Also note that SC4 calculates traffic usage on a 'per tile' basis. Thus the Ave-y stack has a much higher capacity because it takes up more space than the standard intersection.

[whitesox130 50]

Something worth noting: The AVE Y-stack is like every other prefab: A single-use puzzle piece that is simply underscaled and therefore unrealistic. You don't use an interchange like that to "switch" traffic between surface streets.

Actually, there are places where expressway-style interchanges are used to connect two surface streets. Consider a couple of Chicagoland examples.

Harlem Avenue and 95th Street intersect at a full cloverleaf interchange in Bridgeview, just a few miles outside of the Loop.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=41.719248,-87.798153&spn=0.005678,0.011362&t=h&z=17

Also, in Oak Brook, three such streets (Butterfield Road, Roosevelt Road, and Kingery Road) all intersect with ramps, although Roosevelt has an expressway section that ends here.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=41.858119,-87.958603&spn=0.022662,0.045447&t=h&z=15

[lhrob 213]

Something worth noting: The AVE Y-stack is like every other prefab: A single-use puzzle piece that is simply underscaled and therefore unrealistic. You don't use an interchange like that to "switch" traffic between surface streets.

Actually, there are places where expressway-style interchanges are used to connect two surface streets. Consider a couple of Chicagoland examples.

Harlem Avenue and 95th Street intersect at a full cloverleaf interchange in Bridgeview, just a few miles outside of the Loop.

http://maps.google.c...011362&t=h&z=17

Also, in Oak Brook, three such streets (Butterfield Road, Roosevelt Road, and Kingery Road) all intersect with ramps, although Roosevelt has an expressway section that ends here.

http://maps.google.c...045447&t=h&z=15

Those look similar to the situation I'm working with in my city right now. I have a highway interchange which is diagonally oriented...and just to the west is an avenue flowing north from some oceanside neighborhoods toward the heart of my city. It's in very close proximity to the interchange. The northwest connection to my highway interchange will actually be the terminus for one of the highways, and I have an avenue connected to it which allows the traffic to flow smoothly as it exits or enters the highway system. The problem is that I don't want 2 parallel avenues flowing north into the heart of my city...one from my ocean, and one from the highway access. So I want to merge them into one avenue flowing north/south...but the Y it creates is too close to the interchange. Ideally I'd LIKE to put in the Y stack so that it looks similar to those Google pictures you linked to, but that would mean completely blowing up a part of my town and redoing it all....which would be a LOT of work.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Just to be on the safe side, I'd use the drawpaths option to verify that everything is OK on that. It is part of the Extra Cheats .dll package.

[whitesox130 50]

Something worth noting: The AVE Y-stack is like every other prefab: A single-use puzzle piece that is simply underscaled and therefore unrealistic. You don't use an interchange like that to "switch" traffic between surface streets.

Actually, there are places where expressway-style interchanges are used to connect two surface streets. Consider a couple of Chicagoland examples.

Harlem Avenue and 95th Street intersect at a full cloverleaf interchange in Bridgeview, just a few miles outside of the Loop.

http://maps.google.c...011362&t=h&z=17

Also, in Oak Brook, three such streets (Butterfield Road, Roosevelt Road, and Kingery Road) all intersect with ramps, although Roosevelt has an expressway section that ends here.

http://maps.google.c...045447&t=h&z=15

Those look similar to the situation I'm working with in my city right now. I have a highway interchange which is diagonally oriented...and just to the west is an avenue flowing north from some oceanside neighborhoods toward the heart of my city. It's in very close proximity to the interchange. The northwest connection to my highway interchange will actually be the terminus for one of the highways, and I have an avenue connected to it which allows the traffic to flow smoothly as it exits or enters the highway system. The problem is that I don't want 2 parallel avenues flowing north into the heart of my city...one from my ocean, and one from the highway access. So I want to merge them into one avenue flowing north/south...but the Y it creates is too close to the interchange. Ideally I'd LIKE to put in the Y stack so that it looks similar to those Google pictures you linked to, but that would mean completely blowing up a part of my town and redoing it all....which would be a LOT of work.

It would probably be worth it though. I'm assuming it looks similar to the 95th Street interchange then?

Alternately, you can curve them away from each other and have them serve different parts of your downtown. It's not all that uncommon, though, to see two or more parallel avenues in a densely populated area such as the downtown of a major city a block or two apart. Chicago again serves as a good example. Here's an areal shot at the middle of downtown, the Loop:

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=41.875952,-87.628241&spn=0.022656,0.045447&t=h&z=15

Lake Shore Drive (300 E) is a six-lane surface road; Columbus Drive (200 E) is a four-lane surface road just a block away and parallel. Michigan Avenue (100 E), another block west, is a double-decker avenue and one of the most well-known shopping districts in the Midwest. Lastly, State Street (0 E/W) is the main north-south street for the city, and is well-known for its theaters, ABC News, shopping, hotels, and the State Street Subway. Also note that there are two subway lines and an el line that occupy three parallel streets in a row, and that this entire assembly is still less than a mile from the Dan Ryan Expressway and the other expressways to the west.

In smaller cities, it is common to see two avenues right next to each other if there is a rail line running between them.

[lhrob 213]

It would probably be worth it though. I'm assuming it looks similar to the 95th Street interchange then?

Alternately, you can curve them away from each other and have them serve different parts of your downtown. It's not all that uncommon, though, to see two or more parallel avenues in a densely populated area such as the downtown of a major city a block or two apart. Chicago again serves as a good example.

......

In smaller cities, it is common to see two avenues right next to each other if there is a rail line running between them.

True enough.

Bear with me - I'm not good at sketching things in Paint, and this is a little out of proportion. But here is what I have in mind:

Blue is water. Pink is railroad viaduct. The black lines are the highways. Red are interchanges, or ramps. Purple is the avenue leading from the ocean in the south to the orange central business district in the north. The circled green area is where the Y intersection would be....but the Y Stack puzzle piece won't fit because one segment of it is too close to the highway interchange, and thus it won't change to blue allowing me to place it. So I have a purple avenue spur which leads to the terminus of my southern highway. I suppose I could just have the avenue on the west side run due north into the CBD without curving, and then extend the elevated highway a bit by using the 45° curve before dropping the elevation. Thus I'd have 2 avenues running parallel to one another. It would probably look better anyway, because the transition from elevated highway to ground level avenue is pretty jarring when running on a diagonal. OR...I could just use the Y intersection like I proposed, because I really just wanted to have one central boulevard running into the heart of town - and I'm also concerned about cutting across the section of railroad viaduct in the area, which means I'd have to relocate it. I suppose that's not a done deal yet anyway, because I was giving myself room to fiddle around with it.

What would you do?

[whitesox130 50]

The three options that I personally can think of are:

1. Relocate the railroad north into (or north of) your central business district, if this is possible, and then move your Y north or northwest to get it far enough from your cloverleaf.

2. The option you proposed where you make the two avenues run parallel to each other into your downtown. You might find that this has favorable impact on traffic anyway.

3. Make the intersection a simple at-grade intersection.

I feel that for your situation, number two is probably the best and most realistic. It's common in large cities to have expressways from a few different angles turn into avenues and directly enter the downtown area. Look at New York City for a good example of this, as well as Chicago. Chicago has five places downtown where this occurs.

But if you do this, I think you should beef up the capacity of the interchange connecting your avenue from the oceanside neighborhoods to your highway, as this will now be the main route into your downtown from the southwest.

[lhrob 213]

Yeah, I think you're right. I'll go with option number two. I've been messing with it all evening, and nothing looks right. So I'll just go with 2 parallel avenues. Definitely don't want to relocate the railroad, because I already have the bridge in place, as well as all the grading and viaducts. Plus, being south of the CBD puts it closer to my industrial areas, which are north of the highway.

Thanks for the suggestions!