Traffic

[enchant 2]

I've found that traffic is ending every single game I play.  I use mass transit heavily, with lots of streetcar and shuttle bus stops, and plenty of vehicles.  Invariably, my city is prosperous, and the population continues to rise.  Traffic builds, and none of the emergency vehicles can get to where they need to go.  Happiness falls, and it's time to pack it in as another city is jammed corner-to-corner with gridlock.

[Rufus Honker IV 100]

It helps to make a grid - make rows of zoned roads, and connect them with parralel roads.  Zone NOTHING on the connecting streets. 

 

Commercial slows cars down.  Try to have little pockets of commecrial everywhere (that they can walk to or have a short drive to) as opposed to huge commercial districts, and don't force your cars to drive through big commercial districts on their way to industry.

 

I have no proof for this, but I'm starting to think buses don't take cars off the road - sims don't think "I'll just take the bus to work!" I think the only simms who bus it are walking in the first place.  Park and ride lots probably help.

 

Streetcars ware WONDERFUL, but their biggest job would be taking sims to industrial areas, and you can only put streetcars on high density avenuses (A huge frustration IMHO - high density avenues means HazMat fires, and you need to have a university to get Hazmat trucks).

[Cob92 360]

There may be issues with bottlenecks in your road system holding up traffic. No matter how much transit you use, you will not be able to get all the cars off of the road, and they will inevitably strain your road system to capacity as the city grows. I recommend using bridges and tunnels to create bypasses around traffic hotspots. If your city is offline, get the UDON mod and look at where you can optimize your traffic flows with one way roads and freeways.

[ausmayor 7]

Skybridges!!! I had the same problem bottle necked up the wazoo.. I now have shuttles, regional buses and maglevs. Don't build 4 way intersections oh did I mention sky bridges... lol. These things take ALOT of cars off tge road... researching can be frustratingly slow but it can be very valuable..

[enchant 2]

I currently only have the original version.  Are bridges and tunnels an addon?

 

That's an interesting suggestion about mini commercial areas.  I *do* have all my commercial in one place.

 

Edit...  I think I found the bridge/tunnel thing.  I never noticed the raise/lower road option with 'M' and 'N'.

[xoxide 377]

Traffic is something that you must think about.  Its an engineering aspect of the game.

 

small roads, roundabouts usually are more effective than placing all aves.

 

udons can help control flow and also direction of agent sculpting as I call it, but a bad design will yield bad traffic flow in real life and in any game especially sc2013

 

keep at it and try different aspects

[Rufus Honker IV 100]

I currently only have the original version.  Are bridges and tunnels an addon?

 

Edit...  I think I found the bridge/tunnel thing.  I never noticed the raise/lower road option with 'M' and 'N'.

 

Yep, it was patched in.

[Cob92 360]

I currently only have the original version.  Are bridges and tunnels an addon?

 

That's an interesting suggestion about mini commercial areas.  I *do* have all my commercial in one place.

 

Edit...  I think I found the bridge/tunnel thing.  I never noticed the raise/lower road option with 'M' and 'N'.

 

Commercial is particularly difficult when it gets to higher densities because it creates huge amounts of shopper AND worker traffic. I also suggest limiting the density of commercial areas to prevent the traffic buildup that skyscrapers create.

[elemental1100 50]

If you're playing offline try the no traffic lights mod. It helps to keep traffic flowing because the cars don't have to stop at every corner.