How do I prevent this?

[Sunfighter 186]

So I had somebody build a city next to mine finally today. We both have pretty good sized cities. His is a lot larger grid type city, with a strong speciliazation bringing in tons of cash, mine was just a random experiment with road networks that just grew up pretty well. One problem though, we are both commuting to each other, we are sharing a lot of our populations. And this number seems to overwhelm the one highway interstate connection. I already have a rail connection, and a river connection to try to cut down on this incoming and outgoing traffic. Not sure what else I can do other than park and rides at the entrance.

 

But in this picture, you can sorta see the problem with that cloverleaf. Its only one lane. Its causing a huge ball up. Is there REALLY anything I can do to prevent this? Or am I hosed now? Though traffic entering the city isnt faring much better...this is just traffic trying to leave the city...I dunno what I can do to push them out any faster..there are no intersections cept that one far back...there is little in the way of housing and other items to clutter up the road... Traffic elsewhere in the city is fine...not great....but this is the worst area by far...

 

[Shiphted 4]

Id pull some side roads off the main highway. Connect it in more places thats the benefit of some of the layouts that the connecting highway goes through your city.

[kgpurrs 107]

Put two, maybe even 3 park and rides on that highway entrance ASAP.  Also that side road on the avenue is a stoplight that is blocking all the traffic, get rid of it!

[Sunfighter 186]

The intersection isnt causing the problem I dont think. All those cars on the right are leaving the city. So its backing from the highway towards the intersection. The left side heading into the city isnt the problem here...its a side effect of the right side..ill explain... its a problem with the left turn mechanic on a full intersection... The vast majority of those stuck on the left side of the Ave. want to turn left and go down that "off ramp" i have built, but only go about 1-2 cars worth go on a light because of the right lane backed up to the intersection..since the right lane has the right of way during a green light..they want to go..but cant..and the left turn lane wont go either because the AI sees traffic incoming and stops...even if that incoming traffic is in fact stopped due to back up......so it wont turn left even though it clearly could.....so again..its the right lane leaving the city causing all the problems... Its the people leaving the city....The left lane backing up too is just a side effect...

 

Adding more intersections wont work...again..they are leaving the city...they dont want to go into the city anywhere..they just want to leave...BUT the vast majority want to leave towards my neighbors city...so...its going from a 3 lane ave, to the 1 lane exit ramp on the regional interstate..something we dont have any control of. I cant change that..its outside the dotted lines. 

 

I havent tried adding park and ride and buses....Im not sure itd work on traffic leaving the city...I suppose thats the only option i have control over....but im terrified of an invasion of a wall of buses from neighbors that ive seen on reddit and other places.

 

I just dont see any solution to this that isnt obvious. My first instinct would be to destroy that damn interstate exchange and redesign it..but not having regional controls...very painful..

[Sunfighter 186]

So changing the one intersection to a medium connecter DID fix the issue with the left hand lane...but it still leaves me with this.... How do i get these lil dudes out faster! GO GET OUT! GO ! looking at them, most of them are tourists leaving the region.....

 

That one lane exit ramp just seems to bugger everything up!

 

 

[Zades 7]

That really shouldn't happen.  It's clear on the highway as far as I can see.  My guess would be either it's a bus stop stopping traffic or it's your schools, with people trying to get out, stopping the traffic, try redoing the road so you can put schools on the other side and see if that helps.  Also check the bus stops if there are any and see if theres a lot of buses sitting there for no reason.

[Sunfighter 186]

Buses dont work. Trams dont work. Moving the high school i havent tried yet. But its not the problem I dont think. Its the god damn one lane exit ramp. Its like my city is attached by a dirt road basically, and since this is a tourist town, they just go balls up trying to leave the city. The game right now..is trying to figure out how the hell to trick the "simulation" into clearing out the roads. Heck ive even did a queue road all windy and such to hold this useless "had a great vacation, going home" traffic and the queue filled up completely and still backloged all the way into my city. Its the one freaking highway exit thats killing my town. I mean look at it, every one of those cars, wants to take that one exit ramp...

 

 

 

 

and its causing this.... 90% of the traffic is all trying to just leave the damn city.

 

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On the bright side...they are using the ring road like i planned, so its keeping the mess out most my city cept for the casinos and tourist district. (which are now losing money because tourists cant even move due to wall to wall traffic)

[Zades 7]

Can you show me a picture of your population/visitor chart as well as the data map for tourists?

[maximummatt 0]

I have this happening too.

Here is why: Everyone leaving your city is turning to the left to get on the highway. So sims are all lining up to get into the one lane of traffic that takes them where they want to go. And as you can see, you have some sims who wait to crowd into that left lane and block the other two through-lanes on your ring road, causing a back up. 

In a twisted way, this is pretty realistic: there is always that idiot who tries to squeeze in and causes everyone else behind to slow or stop.

The real problem here is that there is, in effect, just one freaking lane to get out of your city because Maxis insists on not allowing us to manage our own connections in and out of our cities. It is bad planning on their part. And there is nothing you can do, except force more people to take transit out of your city. 

[Sunfighter 186]

Gold are the tourists, they mostly like foot traffic, and the vast majority stay between my two casinos. There are 3 hotels within the downtown core.

 

 

Not many tourists really...

 

 

Not many commuting out...

 

 

One thing I found curious....nobody is listed as "at home"....is that implying everybody is out on the street ?

 

[Sunfighter 186]

So, the game lists these people as shoppers, Yet, they arnt commuting out to go buy stuff.....They have a happy face...are these....the shoppers that are SUPPOSED to go home and raise residential happiness? I notice that every residential building has the baseline happiness for their density......i think these are the people that USED to head home after shopping and raise residential happiness when the town was smaller....now they just leave the town?

 

 

 

wow...i think they are...is this another bug? or intended? shopping residents are NOT returning home to give happyness or searching for homes..they are just...leaving the city after buying goods.....hmmm....very interesting...

[Sunfighter 186]

Okay ive confirmed that this is the case. I went to a smaller city and noticed Commercial shoppers were returning home and giving happiness. At a certain population (to be determined) this part of the simulation SHUTS DOWN COMPLETELY. Either by bug or on purpose (they could disable parts of the simulation once the agent count starts to get high). The shoppers that were supposed to find a house...just decide to leave the city. That many agents on auto leave just causes a massive bottleneck. This cant be intended could it?

[Toll 0]

What $ level are the shoppers trying to leave and what $ level is the majority of your residential buildings? Perhaps for some reason the Sims $ level changes after they shop, so they try to return home to $ dwelling when you only have $$ dwellings forcing them all to the leave the city and go 'home' to your neighbour city's houses?

 

In the morning, do you get a big influx of people from outside your city?

[Sunfighter 186]

Negative, on the influx of people, in fact I had none. Working on a theory that there just isnt enough housing to soak up the shoppers. Something is bugged with shopper counts I think. Hence the strong commerical growth even though demand shows none. Im gonna work on a theory, and destroy a lot of commercial zones..,,,

 

There is an unbalance....too much C not enough R, even though it doesnt show it in the numbers graph.

[Sunfighter 186]

FIXED! sorta.....As far as I know there isnt a way to separate wealth shoppers via a visuals. BUT destroying A LOT of commerical and zoning R instead, lead to a VAST improvement. So there is something really messed up between the relationship of shoppers, commercial and residential zones that breaks down at a certain point. It MAYBE tied to the fudged population numbers given later on. It SEEMS that maybe homes are producing more shopper agents then they have residents. Or Commerical is spawning  way too many shoppers returning home than it should. This floods your road network with tons of happy fulfilled shoppers....but nowhere to go..so they head out of the city to disappear forever.

 

YET the graphs show you have fulfilled your shoppers and in fact it said i had a deficit of shopping in middle class....yet IT WASNT TRUE AT ALL. This may also be tied to parks and their giving of commercial happiness.

 

 

Notice im way behind in shopper satisfaction..yet very few are actually commuting out..when they should be able to......notice how my population has grown greatly...and even better...notice the traffic...ITS ALL GONE.

 

 

bye bye traffic problems. Commerical happiness is up due to less competition....R has gone up..though some areas cant find shopping now..but its just a matter of tweaking the zoning a bit.

 

So...something in the Sim has an unbalance..either its the parks, the shoppers produced by R, or produced by C, either way.....if your getting heavy traffic, and if they are all shoppers leaving the city.....you have a unbalance of C to R, even though the NUMBERS graph doesnt say so.

A city of 110,000....no traffic problems other then a small back up at a light from a small commute of workers. Problem solved.

 

[Teksun 1]

Try putting a road right before where you put the car parks. There is no place for your sims to make a u-turn they may HAVE to leave.