Optimal Road Layouts?

[qazzy1122 2]

I'm starting a new region, and don't want to deal with the slow build-up to high density that I normally deal with, as it normally leads to poor road organization that is too costly (demolition-wise) to fix.

 

Any ideas on how to organize a central city that can handle high traffic and enable a CBD to be constructed? This question is specifically aimed at the use of avenues or not, and how so.

 

 

[jmsepe 2,038]

I personally like the idea of putting an arterial avenue with trams. Just another personal opinion, if you want a CBD that can handle high traffic then place mass transit. There are many ways to create a CBD, most of the good looking CBDs you see are created by plopped building otherwise bear to suffer and wait for the buildings you want to see grow. 

 

You can also check the Show Us Your Downtown thread further ideas.  

[cogeo 960]

in general, making a CBD in SC4 is quite problematic, because of the pathfindng bug. Sims living close to the city border will prefer to cross it, rather than work at the city centre, often causing a condition known as the eternal commuters bug. So it is advisable to build woekplaces near the city border (they benefit from the high traffic) and residences (esp high-densitty ones) at more central locations (or at least arrange transit networks so that they have no easy access to the city border - force them to travel through a C area, before they can reach the border).

 

For this reason I use an arterial design: dead-end streets, leading to roads, leading to avenues and/or highways. I zone C around the avenue (you may even add another parallel road or two. Commuters are forced to travel through the C area, which enjoy a high traffic (=customers), while residences enjoy the least possible traffic noise, as there is no traffic running through the R clusters (at least in front of them). And a 1-tile-wide strip between those clusters is enough to add small parks and/or trees, to increase desirability, thus enabling hi-rise R development (even R$ hirises need a fairly high land value and desirability, they won't grow everywhere). You can see examples of such layouts ok and Unfortunately these are old posts and the imageshack site has changed its policies since then, so the images can only be downloaded, not viewed directly. Please note that all these buildings are growable, and the layout is not grid. Sims can't get from one road to another, they have to go through the avenue first. This takes traffic from the R areas and drives it through the C ones, creating favourable conditions for C development there. And finally when a large R building grows, the result will be increased traffic, which will again have to run through the avenue, helping grow even taller buildings there. That is the system is to some degree self-regulated as well. The C area around the avenue is a grid though. Pay some attention to the hirise R area being developed. As you can see it is centrally located, and has many MT options planned (GLR, subway, busses) all leading to the avenue. I'm also plannign for commuter rail, which will be connecting to the neighbour city, but running through a hihg-density C zone, and featuring several small stations or stops along the route, also having a busstop just next (so sims can alight from the train and ride the bus - of course the C area is going to have a bus network, with stops no more than 6-7 tiles apart). This ensures that a large percentage of the commuters will be able to find a job within the city, without having to commute to the neighbour.

 

Hope this helps

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, you could put the game in pause then use avenues to lay out your prospective CBD with, say, a high density 4 x 4 C lot at each of the four corners of the main intersection, a plaza or two and surrounded by medium density 2x2 and 2x3 residential pods.  The put it in Cheetah for a few Sim-years, dropping back to Rhino when you see how things are going so you can enjoy the animation.

 

I don't recommend this approach because there really is no royal road to success in this endeavour.  You'll need the moolah command to set your treasury to around 1,000,000.

[qazzy1122 2]

Thank you for your advise. I think I will start with a grid layout w/ avenues every so often, but start with low density and grow the city organically. If you have any more tips, feel free to add.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Keep the grid layout in your head and only lay down the part from which you intend to grow.  This kind of thing can be extended at will, so you don't have to do a lot of expensive network layout before you get to the nitty-gritty of building the city.  Get it going, then expand as you see fit.

[Map Guy 162]

The arterial suggestion is a good one. I tend to create low-density suburbs on the edge of cities with just one or two accesses to main roads or avenues which then delivers the traffic to more commercial areas. Ensure that your junctions on highways/motorways deal with just these important roads rather than have exits for every road that comes near the motorway.

 

When it comes to the CBD itself, I think the most important thing is to ensure that you have plenty of different transport options to access it. Whether that's road, heavy rail, trams, buses, or subways, make sure there's plenty of stations and intersections between these different types of transport in and around your CBD. If you make it easy enough for your sims to commute to the CBD, then they will do just that. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Other than wide roads and commuter rail, hold off on more advanced stuff until you need it.  It is very easy to run a subway beneath an avenue, and for ease of use lay down bus/subway stations even if there is currently no subway in the planned route.

 

Two of the really handy things you get with the NAM is the Ninja Kiosk and the Ninja Boulevard Station.  Both combination everything stations that don't take up much real estate.

[qazzy1122 2]

Ok, other than the pathfinding fixes (<---what file is this?), the only other thing I currently want out of NAM is a 1 wide road with higher capacity than the normal. Is this in NAM? Is there something at all like what I am describing within NAM?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

You want the traffic controller and the RWM.  RWM can give you up to six lane roads.

[Ganaram Inukshuk 906]

You want the traffic controller and the RWM.  RWM can give you up to six lane roads.

None of those things, by name, exist in the NAM. You're referring to three different things: The Traffic Simulator, the Controller, and the NWM.

Just installing the NAM itself will give you the Traffic Simulator, no matter what options you pick, but choosing the NWM will give you the Controller (which is just RUL code; it's got nothing to do with the Traffic Simulator) with the necessary code needed to make the NWM work.

[Cob92 360]

I start off with a grid of streets, with a single "Main Street" that starts off as a road. Over time, I increase capacity along the most congested streets, and when a street starts to extend out of the original townsite to connect outlying developments, I may go so far as to upgrade it to an avenue. All my transportation networks coalesce in this original grid, so you eventually have trains, subways, freeways, and arterial roads all serving what has evolved from a sleepy village into the CBD of a large metropolis.

[Ltw 401]

I usually save space at the beginning for future infrastructure. When I build a city with plans to expand in such a way that this could lead to traffic-problems I save some space near the commercial zone that should develop into a Central Business District, this space should provide enough room for an avenue (which could be changed by the Network Widening Mod if it doesn't meet the requirements anymore), I also save room for Heavy Rail and monorail, this space is located in a large stroke between the commercial zone and residential zone (about 6 to 8 tiles wide, depending on what my future plans are). From this wide corridor I build a grid-like network that reaches every edge of the city. A definite pro of this method is that it is cheap in the beginning (it only costs space), it also gives me some certainty that I don't have to demolish a lot of buildings if I want to develop decent infrastructure. However, it already gives a big footprint on how your city would look like, that could be less fun if you want the city to grow more naturally.

 

Personally I prefer public transport. My cities have a large public-transport network as well. You could keep in mind that rich people are less likely using public transport, for them the road network should be good in order to keep desirability high. The main pros of public transportation are the high capacity and the higher speeds. Even though the tile size in Simcity 4 is relatively small I've noticed that residents often prefer public transport. For this reason I choose for the combination of public transport and an extensive road-network.