When should you start building public transport?

[Themightypierre 1]

And does it actually help? I love the idea of building a good transport network but don't want to make great effort if they don't work in reducing congestion.

[mayorgreener 37]

100% they work ...

 

The bus stops, the passenger rail, the freight rail, the mono-rails,subway,  elevated rail and other advanced networks that come with NAM .. they all work.

 

And I think its highly recommended to use them... I always use them...

[infamousjbe 593]

There's usually a rail line laid down prior to development that I'll start using right away. Then once the budget is in the black and collecting surplus, the bus lines will start being placed. 

 

As far as the other networks, those usually come as they are needed to fit the situation.

[jmsepe 2,039]

First off, I recommend you to download NAM. It really helps in reducing congestion more than any system. Why? Because it redirects commuters to travel using the shortest time instead of the default shortest distance. This will help you in achieving a 100% efficiency in your system.

 

Second, start with the bus transit. It's the cheapest public transport and not to mention the easiest to create. 

 

When your city grows bigger, you can now add more such elevated rail (my favorite), subway, monorail and others that are included in the NAM. There is actually no specific time for you to build your transportation system, it's all about personal choice. Sometimes, I already ground rail even if my city is small. When making mass transportation systems, efficiency is the key. You can see it in your city growth whether it requires to build a new, add a new line or demolish the old one. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Agreed on the NAM.  I generally connect my rural towns with rail.  Rail is the easiest way to keep freight congestion off the road network.  As the villages grow into town, I add bus lines as needed to reduce congestion (it doesn't much), then as avenues turn red, subway lines.  I use Maxis highways between city tiles occasionally, but am more likely to use rail or monorail.

 

It really depends on how things develop.  In one of my cities right now I have a subway connection from the next tile that surfaces into an extensive elevated rail.  I've just joined another local subway system to it at a junction point with rail.

 

Use whatever works and suits your fancy.

[Bdub01 201]

Especially when you get huge apartment buildings with3k+ sims put a rail station or three nearby as well as scattering a few bus stops along the way. I've had passenger train stations at over 500% usage. So they really do work but if you don't have NAM. Get it before you do ANYTHING else. Even if you don't use any other custom content get NAM. It really does make it a whole new game.

[Themightypierre 1]

Thanks for all the advice guys to clarify I do have NAM. I've built a track connecting one half of the city to the industrial zone. But I can't get the rail to fly over my central avenue

[cogeo 960]

As other members said, you can start early on with buses. They are inexpensive to build and operate. They can be very profitable too, if you connect some densely populated areas with workplaces, especially if the distance travelled is long (eg commuting to a neighbour city). And the best thing is that they boost desirability (just like all other MT stations) and therefore can really help get medium- and high-density development, if you have the demand. The only problem is that they don't provide parking facilities, ie your sims won't drive to the bus stop (they can only walk to), so you will need a quite dense arrangement (one bus-stop every 6 to 10 tiles) to get a good usage. Consider using RTMT (roadtop) bus-stops, which do not take up additional space, and therefore can be used in already developed areas, without requiring leaving empty tiles or demolishing existing buildings.

 

All forms of "rail" are fast, but are quite hard to lay, I mean achieve a realistic look and functional layout, and integrate well in the urban fabric (they are rather disruptive), so you need to plan ahead (leave empty space for the right-of-way, plan where to place stations, how to intersect with other networks etc). Heavy (commuter) rail stations typically offer parking facilities (your sims can park-and-ride, thus serving bigger or sparsely-populated areas), while all other types (elevated, GLR, monorail) typically don't (unless specially modded). I (and some few other members) have uploaded GLR stations with parking, but these are exceptions, not the norm. So if you want to serve larger suburban areas, you should put some (external) parking garages next to them (they must be touching the same road or street as the GLR station for the park-and-ride feature to work). The ingame garage is humongous and ugly, but there are several open-air parking garages on the STEX. My advice, keep away from "modular" parking lots, usually only one of the tiles will be working, the others don't get any usage. I have made a set with lots of various sizes (1x1, 1x2, 1x3, 1x4, 2x1, 2x2, 3x1 etc) which look quite realistic if placed next to another MT station. I could send you them if you want, but they are pretty basic, so consider lotting your own.

 

Subways are nice, only they cost quite a lot to operate, but admittedly ridiculously cheap to build (real cities spend billions to build them, requiring careful planning spanning over many years or even decades).

 

And something else. NAM's Traffic simulator settings have actually taken a direction less favourable to MT than the  default ones:

- Preference for cars (more sims will use their cars, even if MT is faster). This was supposedly made for "realism", but it indeed reduces MT usage.

- Lower speeds for buses. IIRC bus speeds have been set to low, for networks like streets or avenues, slower than cars - for "realism", again. This may be true, but in reality MT passengers don't have to look for a parking place, not to mention that buses may be granted priority or even exclusive lanes. This really kills buses, because with these settings, sims will have no reason to choose them.

- Buses contributing to traffic (with the default settings they do not), which means that they won't ease congestion anymore.

NAM comes with a tool that allows you to change these settings (you can simply use the reader as well), so consider changing them. Better consult z1 (z), who makes these things, and ask him why those settings have been chosen.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Thanks for all the advice guys to clarify I do have NAM. I've built a track connecting one half of the city to the industrial zone. But I can't get the rail to fly over my central avenue

If it really is an avenue, there is a puzzle piece for that in the rail tab ring.  I think it is around No. 24.  Just keep tabbing.

[Metalpuritan 161]

I tried using the RTMT once upon a time.  I decided against it due to its inability to be slop friendly, I once placed an RTMT bus stop on a sloped road and the bus stop was actually floating in thin air.  Also, I know this can be corrected with strategic placement, but many times the RTMT will block road access to residential homes and other RCI buildings/lots.  I had to veto the RTMT due to it not being slope friendly and the inconvenience of having to place it strategically, VERY strategically around my cities as to not cause chaos.  A darn shame that, it is a very good concept.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

I tried using the RTMT once upon a time.  I decided against it due to its inability to be slop friendly, I once placed an RTMT bus stop on a sloped road and the bus stop was actually floating in thin air.  Also, I know this can be corrected with strategic placement, but many times the RTMT will block road access to residential homes and other RCI buildings/lots.  I had to veto the RTMT due to it not being slope friendly and the inconvenience of having to place it strategically, VERY strategically around my cities as to not cause chaos.  A darn shame that, it is a very good concept.

A very pure attitude.  I use RTMT all the time, and it is only a matter of going along with some of the restrictions.  If you want something, you really do have to go along with some of the warts at times.  RTMT has some failings, but I can get along with them rather than give up all that real-estate for bus stops.

[Essex 322]

 

I tried using the RTMT once upon a time.  I decided against it due to its inability to be slop friendly, I once placed an RTMT bus stop on a sloped road and the bus stop was actually floating in thin air.  Also, I know this can be corrected with strategic placement, but many times the RTMT will block road access to residential homes and other RCI buildings/lots.  I had to veto the RTMT due to it not being slope friendly and the inconvenience of having to place it strategically, VERY strategically around my cities as to not cause chaos.  A darn shame that, it is a very good concept.

A very pure attitude.  I use RTMT all the time, and it is only a matter of going along with some of the restrictions.  If you want something, you really do have to go along with some of the warts at times.  RTMT has some failings, but I can get along with them rather than give up all that real-estate for bus stops.

 

A lot of times when I use RTMT one tile next to it says it has no access to a road, so I fill that tile up with a normal bus stop and delete the RTMT. How to avoid that?

[jmsepe 2,039]

I tried using the RTMT once upon a time.  I decided against it due to its inability to be slop friendly, I once placed an RTMT bus stop on a sloped road and the bus stop was actually floating in thin air.  Also, I know this can be corrected with strategic placement, but many times the RTMT will block road access to residential homes and other RCI buildings/lots.  I had to veto the RTMT due to it not being slope friendly and the inconvenience of having to place it strategically, VERY strategically around my cities as to not cause chaos.  A darn shame that, it is a very good concept.

 

What's an RTMT?

[Haljackey 17,398]

RTMT: Road Top Mass Transit

 

Link to NAM Acronyms https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=15114.0:

[Ganaram Inukshuk 906]

Just a note: RTMT (Road Top Mass Transit) is a separate download from the NAM itself; you tend to see it in conjunction with the NAM because of how it makes an excellent supplement to the NAM itself.

Also, there's a bit of trickery one can do to force an RTMT to accept zoning. https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=15057

[infamousjbe 593]

Here are some bus stops for your NWM as well. It's not RTMT, but it's the same principle.

 

[Turjan 1,048]

I tried using the RTMT once upon a time.  I decided against it due to its inability to be slop friendly, I once placed an RTMT bus stop on a sloped road and the bus stop was actually floating in thin air.

 

Yup, you have to remove any slope mod before placing the stops, and putting them on steep slopes is a no go. But then again, steep slopes are the exception in my settled areas, which are often enough subject to some civil engineering. I wouldn't do without RTMT.

[cogeo 960]

@Metalpuritan: Don't know what you mean by placing RTTM station on slopes and having busstops floating on thin air, because actually you can't place them on slopes. The game regards them as intersections and will flatten the lot as soon as the road or street is dragged through it. And this can of course cause unwanted terraforming. It would be best to flatten the tile where the RTMT station is going to be placed yourself, when you are making your landscaping.

 

@Essex: RTMT stations (just like all TE lots, incl the ingame tollbooth) indeed block the lots immediately behind them, but only if the lot is 1-tile wide and has no other access. This is hardcoded in the game and there is no way to solve it with modding. There are several workaround though, like zoning wider lots or placing the RTMT lots at intersections, or parallel to the lots. Refer to the readme for details and pics.

[The Pennsylvania Turnpike 252]

At 10,000 city population, i usually start building bus stops. It really depends if my region really need's a rail or subway system.  

[Jared001 2]

Idea;;u, heavy rail/monorail (and even el-rail) should be incorporated into the initial planning phases of city design. If you think about it logically, outward growth of cities usually follow the direction of public transport.

 

Also, you don't want to be putting in these system in place AFTER building development has begun; as it will mean large-scale demolishing of established sectors in your city - which can become quite expensive (especially the loss of tax revenue).

 

I personally lay down/allocate space for all public infrastructure during the initial planning stage. Hence I can create (IMO) more realistic and integrative results:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My layout is (in part) inspired by some epic creations by Clark Palmer (whose you-tube creations had me so deflated for a while): 

[infamousjbe 593]

Also, you don't want to be putting in these system in place AFTER building development has begun; as it will mean large-scale demolishing of established sectors in your city - which can become quite expensive (especially the loss of tax revenue).

 

Well this is a matter of a mayor's play style. I particularly enjoy organic growth which does mean at times having to clear large tracts of land and displacing some Sims in the process. This happens everyday in the real world. For me half the fun is trying to figure out the best path/location  to build upgraded networks with the least resistance, and smallest hit to the budget.

 

Now if you're trying to build a utopia style city, then most definitely the networks would be highly thought out/planned.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Now I, too, am one for urban redevelopment as necessary.  Cities don't often plan for the way expansion goes.  Trying to plan a city is something like herding cats.

[Jared001 2]

Fair enough, but I rkn a bit of planning ahead (through just leaving a few squares for the rail-line that may run through there when demand picks up) does allow for better expansion opportunities later on, without the headache of re-shifting populations. Not sure about different parts of the world, but down here in Aus; we have land trails owned by the gov't called "Crown Land"; which can then be used to expand transport infrastructures when required. Also, planning is a must if you want to (like me) eliminate those level-crossings that running through your downtown CBD. I'm not sure, but I have a sneaky suspicion they do add to the commute times.

[Themightypierre 1]

I just wanted to say thanks for all the advice guys it's been really interesting.