Show Us Your Skylines Interchanges

[Judazzz 1,936]

I like the idea of colored trees (in other words: I'm so going to steal that!), nice one!

[clhigh7 583]

A couple views in a new city I'm working on. This city is going to be loosely based off of Houston.

[clhigh7 583]

This is a city i'm working on. I've got almost 2 of the 8 initial interchanges built. Here's some of the progress on a new stack.

[Koesj 659]

Those look so well constructed that I can only recommend you to please please please start using Fine Road Heights and extend those steeper slopes

Also, an update from what used to be my main city but what is now a mess of missing assets and tests with some of the newer road mods or updates (though the fact I was able to save this place through S.O.S. was great in itself!):

I've tried to incorporate as much of Network Extensions' and Sharp Junction Angles' features as possible, and though I admit I wasn't as hot on the former before I like it way better than the latter. To me, with the proper bridges added to the 2 lane freeways these roads feel a lot less 'thick' and way more realistic than out of the box Cities Skylines. Wrt sharp angles there's just too much funkiness going on with getting the right placement, and for not that great results to boot. Especially in the first pic you can see some really steep angles between merging/diverging lanes.

Again, I'd kill for proper lane drops, especially when looking at one of Traffic++'s workshop screenshots and thinking how those colored lines might as well be drawable, possibly parallel running paths on which cars can travel. Sigh.

 

[clhigh7 583]

14 hours ago, Koesj said:

Those look so well constructed that I can only recommend you to please please please start using Fine Road Heights and extend those steeper slopes

 

I have the fine road heights mod active but every time I try to extend a slope, it looks bumpy. Is this possibly a conflict with one of my other mods or does the bumpiness still happen to ya'll? 

[Koesj 659]

38 minutes ago, clhigh7 said:

I have the fine road heights mod active but every time I try to extend a slope, it looks bumpy. Is this possibly a conflict with one of my other mods or does the bumpiness still happen to ya'll? 

It depends on what kind of slope you're trying to make anyway. Elevated roads all the way look fine, but every point where the road comes into contact with an embankment it's going to look bumpy. This extends into working with ground construction mode in No Pillars as well:

 

In the above pic the 24c long, 12m high slope is perfectly smooth when elevated all the way, but both 'normal' and 'ground' construction are a bit bumpy. Either work with elevated slopes all the way (great for some styles of cities IMO), go hog-wild with terraforming before placing the roads (hard), or accept the bumpiness. IMO, even in the latter case it'll start looking better than the 12.5% slope you're getting from the base game's zero to twelve meters height in 12c when you're not totally zoomed in.

[Ryno917 102]

16 hours ago, Koesj said:

Those look so well constructed that I can only recommend you to please please please start using Fine Road Heights and extend those steeper slopes

Also, an update from what used to be my main city but what is now a mess of missing assets and tests with some of the newer road mods or updates (though the fact I was able to save this place through S.O.S. was great in itself!):

 

Looks pretty nice for a 'broken' city! What's the big building in the bottom of the first image? Looks like a nice library or theatre of some sort.

[Koesj 659]

That's one of C:S' standard landmark buildings, IIRC the theater.

[Ryno917 102]

Well damn. That's what I get for spending more time browsing assets and the like than actually playing. Thanks!

[hbn 244]

Doesn't always help when it takes the height of the road direct from the ground instead of an absolute placed height. Any change in the elevation or gradient will be reflected in the ramp. Typically if you draw it long without doing a gradient yourself, it will look bumpy. Also noticed that type changes aren't on the gradient either. Going from a one-lane to a two-lane will have that change levelled which makes it look awkward. The road intersection itself will also be levelled. I've largely accepted the bumpiness just because I CBA with terraforming fine-tunes and that.

I've started using grade separation a lot more now. I find sunken highways using the Fine Heights mod at -8m to be quite useful for allowing roads to be drawn above it.

Four of my latest to the part of the city on the north shore. A stack interchange of sorts with on/off ramps to the dual-carriageway above.

 

Following the road above northbound eventually leads you to this. Turn left for the bridge. Right turn leads you on to the main motorway. The aim is for traffic from the east wishing to cross the bay to bypass the city centre. ATM there isn't much traffic so it's untested.

The last junction before the bay crossing in a half-clover based design. Tight squeeze to fit in those two cloves without it messing up the look of the bridge.

 

And lastly a typical roundabout design junction. Found commonly in the UK usually because it allows high traffic flow without the need for traffic lights though recently they've been installing traffic lights on them.

 

[Inpw 14]

Lurker posting for a change...

 

 

 

[jesper107 113]

Always amazed by the big interchanges. Where I live, southern Sweden, pretty much all highways are ground based. Is it common for elevated highways where you guys live?

Nice picture!

Sorry for offtopic!

[peperodriguez2710 138]

Just bought it, and looks awesome! Though at the moment I prefer SC4, C:S it's a worthy sucessor to it.

 A double trumpet interchange based on one I saw in SC4. It's a bit messy, and I could improve it shaving a little here and there, but I am pretty happy as it is.

BTW, 

On 1/1/2016 at 6:21 PM, jesper107 said:

Always amazed by the big interchanges. Where I live, southern Sweden, pretty much all highways are ground based. Is it common for elevated highways where you guys live?

Nice picture!

Sorry for offtopic!

I'm from Spain, and (in my city, Palma de Mallorca) elevated freeways are only in overpasses and interchanges, and always with earth ramps, but in huge cities like Madrid, Barcelona or Valencia, I've seen elevated freeways, especillay with VAO's (carpools), as the example seen here in Barcelona, but ground based are the common ones afterall.

Regards! ^^

[hbn 244]

On 01/01/2016 at 5:21 PM, jesper107 said:

On 01/01/2016 at 5:21 PM, jesper107 said:

Always amazed by the big interchanges. Where I live, southern Sweden, pretty much all highways are ground based. Is it common for elevated highways where you guys live?

Nice picture!

Sorry for offtopic!

Always amazed by the big interchanges. Where I live, southern Sweden, pretty much all highways are ground based. Is it common for elevated highways where you guys live?

Nice picture!

Sorry for offtopic!

I live in the UK. Elevated roads aren't that common. You'll find a lot of them at ground level, until you start entering built up areas at which they get grade separated by an embankment or cut in to the ground. These are typically trunk roads that are limited access as they're designed to carry high densities of traffic at fast speeds and typically have slip roads or roundabouts as their main access. A railway line near me that links my town to a city is cut through limestown, yet the freight line that moves through parts of the town is carried on an embankment and over a bridge to avoid disrupting major routes and whatnot. Heidenheim Drive, covering part of the A4042 in Newport is elevated. Elevated railway lines that run parallel to roads are usually arched. Some in the case of the Wicker Arches in Sheffield are bricked up and converted into shop or small industrial units. It's not possible to do that on Cities Skylines unless using Boformer's Network Skins mod and someone has done an archway pillar design for it or you manage to do one yourself. Units will only be cosmetic though.

Elevated roads do exist though. Some typically in ringroads where the intention is not to cut off major routes into town from the suburbs.

[Horus_Kol 118]

2 hours ago, hbn said:

I live in the UK. Elevated roads aren't that common. You'll find a lot of them at ground level, until you start entering built up areas at which they get grade separated by an embankment or cut in to the ground. These are typically trunk roads that are limited access as they're designed to carry high densities of traffic at fast speeds and typically have slip roads or roundabouts as their main access. A railway line near me that links my town to a city is cut through limestown, yet the freight line that moves through parts of the town is carried on an embankment and over a bridge to avoid disrupting major routes and whatnot. Heidenheim Drive, covering part of the A4042 in Newport is elevated. Elevated railway lines that run parallel to roads are usually arched. Some in the case of the Wicker Arches in Sheffield are bricked up and converted into shop or small industrial units. It's not possible to do that on Cities Skylines unless using Boformer's Network Skins mod and someone has done an archway pillar design for it or you manage to do one yourself. Units will only be cosmetic though.

Elevated roads do exist though. Some typically in ringroads where the intention is not to cut off major routes into town from the suburbs.

You do get some elevated highways in high-density cities - like the M4/A4 through West London, the Mancunian Way in Manchester, and the motorways through central Glasgow.

[clhigh7 583]

On ‎1‎/‎1‎/‎2016 at 11:21 AM, jesper107 said:

Always amazed by the big interchanges. Where I live, southern Sweden, pretty much all highways are ground based. Is it common for elevated highways where you guys live?

Nice picture!

Sorry for offtopic!

In Texas, most of our interchanges are elevated. We use frontage roads alongside our freeways so I guess it's necessary. We also have flash flood problems so it makes it easier to traverse the city in the event of a hurricane or major storm.

Here's a few photos that you might like if you're into the big interchanges. They aren't my photos

Below: Grand Parkway at I-10 The Katy Freeway, West Houston. Photo by Shawn Epps.

Below: North Central Expressway-US 75 at The LBJ Freeway-Loop 635, North Dallas

Below: I-10 The Katy Freeway at The Beltway, West Houston

Below:  I-10 The Katy Freeway at Highway 6, West Houston-The Energy Corridor. Photo by Alex MacLean.

[jesper107 113]

I'm glad I live in a country with pretty much no-one around. I really don't like those super-interchanges. Looks like a wound or something! Good for you fellas who like them - that means you can have fun with it in C:SL. I'm stuck with plopping trees! 

[boformer 3,169]

On 4.1.2016 at 4:27 PM, clhigh7 said:

In Texas, most of our interchanges are elevated. We use frontage roads alongside our freeways so I guess it's necessary. We also have flash flood problems so it makes it easier to traverse the city in the event of a hurricane or major storm.

The maintenance costs for all of these bridges must be crazy. Hopefully there are no major earthquakes...

On 4.1.2016 at 7:45 PM, jesper107 said:

I'm glad I live in a country with pretty much no-one around. I really don't like those super-interchanges. Looks like a wound or something! Good for you fellas who like them - that means you can have fun with it in C:SL. I'm stuck with plopping trees! 

I live in germany, and the population density is high. There are still almost no 4-level interchanges with elevated ramps. Most of the interchanges are cloverleafs or only partial stacks.

[hbn 244]

On 04/01/2016 at 2:47 AM, Horus_Kol said:

You do get some elevated highways in high-density cities - like the M4/A4 through West London, the Mancunian Way in Manchester, and the motorways through central Glasgow.

I didn't say they didn't exist though. Just not that common. Even large interchanges aren't much in existance. You sometimes will see a Y-interchange (like the A1(m) junction with the M62) and then there is Spaghetti Junction (or Gravely Hill given it's proper name) in Birmingham. We've not really needed these huge stacks carrying five thousand lanes of traffic in each direction though.

We tend to like roundabouts quite a lot over here though. We've started having a habit of sticking traffic lights on them though.

[Ryno917 102]

Yea, large stacks are really only ever seen here when major highways are intersecting in urban areas. Other than that, there's a lot of cloverleaf interchanges in suburban areas. Rural areas often have small ramps to slip roads, or a simple straight ramp up to an overpass.

[Koesj 659]

Crap, even my mid-century city couldn't escape the freeway monster before pop had hit 40k 

 

[Inpw 14]

On 1/4/2016 at 5:27 PM, clhigh7 said:

Below:  I-10 The Katy Freeway at Highway 6, West Houston-The Energy Corridor. Photo by Alex MacLean.

I still don't understand why they engineered it like that. Why couldn't it just be straight with bridges going over?

 

And also:

 

Just why?

 

[GC_Vos 714]

I think I shared this one before, after some requests I put it on the workshop: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=603075297

[Kaputnik 27]

I made a thing...

Actually not that new, just found the ss while browsing my steam stuff.

Might have to redo it now that we have sharper angles

[clhigh7 583]

On ‎1‎/‎16‎/‎2016 at 7:36 AM, Inpw said:

I still don't understand why they engineered it like that. Why couldn't it just be straight with bridges going over?

 

And also:

 

 

Just why?

 

The way they engineered it minimized the right of way acquisition needed. When this project was completed in 2008, this corridor was already completely developed along the frontage roads. Bridges going over the freeway like they did at Highway 6 would have been problematic and more expensive in the long run to use; especially in conjunction with the Elevated HOV system. 

[hitzu 139]

On 16.01.2016 at 6:36 PM, Inpw said:

I still don't understand why they engineered it like that. Why couldn't it just be straight with bridges going over?

In fact in Norway engineers make highways winding on purpose because on straight roads drivers tend to become bored and sleepy, thus curvy roads increase safety.

[Horus_Kol 118]

7 hours ago, hitzu said:

In fact in Norway engineers make highways winding on purpose because on straight roads drivers tend to become bored and sleepy, thus curvy roads increase safety.

I'm pretty sure Australian highway engineers do the same - there always seems to be a kink in the road every few kilometres.

[upuu 0]

On 1/20/2016 at 3:02 PM, Horus_Kol said:

I'm pretty sure Australian highway engineers do the same - there always seems to be a kink in the road every few kilometres.

The trans-Australian highway is prone to driver fatigue because it goes through some extremely remote areas where the road goes straight. Might as well fly across the country!

 

Also they tend to do that as much as they can, but on Interstate 8 in Imperial County, California the freeway goes straight for many miles.

[Grockefeller 68]

 

City of Cairns, Nova Scotia.

 

The south Bell Tollway Interchange.

 

 

Lefort Valley Corridor.

 

Harbor Interchange

 

 

 

The five way interchange.

 

[hbn 244]

Spent my time upgrading this interchange to have slip roads going to the street level dual carriageways, only to find out my game is not saving (akin to the problems caused by the old Traffic Manager when that stopped being updated). I've not enabled the new traffic manager though some workshop content had updated. I know that junction wasn't pretty but it was functional. >.>