Avenues / Highways between cities not used?

[XOTIK 0]

Hi!

First post here, been reading for a while and decided to sign up because I can't find the answer to this question anywhere on the web (or maybe I'm just not using the right search terms)

Anyway, I've noticed that the regular road connections between by cities work just fine, and often times I'll have hundereds and even thousands of Sims traveling over the border on these roads. Naturally this creates a boatload of traffic and there's little red spots all over the edge of my map.

The problem comes in when I try to upgrade to an avenue or highway between cities. I find that very few sims take the avenues or highways over the border, and in one instance half my city became unemployed overnight because I replaced the usual road connection with an avenue!

I've tried a variety of solutions and making sure they're connected properly but still nothing. Is there a reason for this? Is it a glitch or something I'm doing wrong?

tl;dr - barely any sims use the avenue or highway connections between my cities, they only go over the border in large numbers when there's a road. How do I fix this? Or can I?

[bgn 4]

It may be a glitch. I've noticed that whenever I upgrade a street or avenue, it takes some time before the traffic reappears on the upgraded road or highway.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

When you do that, do you upgrade only one city, or do you open the destination city and fix it up as well? I always carry such changes through the region as far as necessary.

[XOTIK 0]

Thanks for getting back to me guys, appreciate the responses.

It may be a glitch. I've noticed that whenever I upgrade a street or avenue, it takes some time before the traffic reappears on the upgraded road or highway.

I know what you're talking about but that's not what I'm talking about. The issue I have is that traffic completely diminishes when I change the road type over a border. For example I might have 2,000 cars traveling on a road between cities but when I upgrade to an avenue in the same exact location there will only be 20 or 30 cars going over the border. I gave some of them time to see if they'd increase in traffic but months and months will go by and there's just no changes.

When you do that, do you upgrade only one city, or do you open the destination city and fix it up as well? I always carry such changes through the region as far as necessary.

Yes, I make sure that when I build a road connection over the border to go to the other city and connect it to their roadways. It's totally stumped me.

[Ganaram Inukshuk 906]

tl;dr - barely any sims use the avenue or highway connections between my cities, they only go over the border in large numbers when there's a road. How do I fix this? Or can I?

This tends to be the case when you don't have the NAM (or its traffic simulator) installed: Sims take the shortest route instead of the fastest route. Simply put, the default traffic simulator is really buggy and unrealistic, and even the original developers of the game admitted it.

You don't have the NAM installed, don't you? If so...

This is actually the bare minimum that you need.

[XOTIK 0]

Thanks for the response Ganaram. I don't have any mods or extras installed into my game, and I'd really rather keep it that way. However, the bit about "shortest route instead of the fastest route" has struck a chord, and I've tried placing the highway literally right next to the row of apartments causing the issues and it seems to have worked, and now actually more than 5,000 sims are traveling on it instead of the usual 2k, so we'll see if I can replicate this across my region.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Thanks for the response Ganaram. I don't have any mods or extras installed into my game, and I'd really rather keep it that way. However, the bit about "shortest route instead of the fastest route" has struck a chord, and I've tried placing the highway literally right next to the row of apartments causing the issues and it seems to have worked, and now actually more than 5,000 sims are traveling on it instead of the usual 2k, so we'll see if I can replicate this across my region.

You really should consider the NAM and the related hotfix. This is as much an expansion package, maybe larger, than Rush Hour. Best thing about it is that it is free. I have found that if I want a clean game without plugins, I still need the NAM, as the old traffic system is really quite buggy and unusable.

[XOTIK 0]

I just watched a video on youtube about NAM and it does seem pretty useful. Might consider adding it in at some point, but for now my immediate issue seems to have been solved by Ganaram's solution.