NAM and speed limits?

[RoddyUK 22]

Firstly, I never know the right place to post here: I find a forum that I think is correct - this one I thought was about suggesting possible things for the NAM team, but now it says it's NAM and Transit Networks. So please feel free to move this to wherever it should go!

Firstly, I want to salute everyone on the NAM team/s for bringing great new transport capacity and variety for the game.

Secondly, I'm not sure if this is at all possible, but I was wondering whether it might be technically feasible to add in player-controlled speed limits?

I'd quite like to be able to lower the speed of my streets in places as pretty soon they can become rat-runs and cut-throughs.

Which sort of defeats the object, because if I disconnect them they can just become bus-stop* hell and I have to put pedmals to reach them. putting pedmals everywhere (I quite like big suburbs everywhere), generally in the "block" formula in one of Rob's videos.

The bus stops and pedmals get in the way of development somewhat.

Also, traffic just loves one way roads - are they the fastest route before RHW?

It certainly seems so: given that in the UK one-way roads are generally only put in to improve traffic flow in fairly dense urban areas, it doesn't help when unnecessary traffic with perfectly good roads on outer routes jumps into the one way system an d cram, it up.

In the pedestrian revolution mod, cars seem to slow for zebra crossings  - but is that just cosmetic?

If not, perhaps the technology could be used to build road/rumble strips (we used to call them "sleeping policemen" in the UK)?

*I saw somewhere, sometime, there was talk of "on road" bus stops, but I can't find them even after looking quite hard. I wondered if they were a project that never got completed? If they do exist, and somebody knows where they are, I'd be grateful if you'd point me in the rough direction; be it STEX, gameplay mods, over on SCDevotion, or wherever.

Best regards and thanks again NAM team.

Roddy



 

[youngwii 74]

I'm not fully sure about your other questions, but regarding on-road bus stops, the most popular set is the Road-Top Mass Transit (RTMT) pack. Here is the link for the main download:

(Mod note: I've edited this to point to the correct package, since v1 does not work with the 3.60 Add-On Pack)

And here is the link for the 3.60 Add-On Pack (intended to serve as an upgrade to the version linked above):

Be sure to read the readmes for both downloads, especially for the 3.60 Add-On Pack, because this download has some files that will replace certain files from the older 3.50 download.

Regarding one-way road speeds, they are indeed higher than other road-based networks (excepting RHW).

[Lucario Boricua 7,026]

To answer @RoddyUK's questions on the NAM's traffic behavior:

• Thank you for the kind words! We work hard to provide the very best in road, rail and transit transportation options for SimCity 4, and we're always glad to get this kind of feedback!

 

• Adjusting speed limits in the NAM Traffic Simulator: there's a really good reason why the NAM traffic simulator has never allowed players to select custom speeds for their networks. Speeds were carefully calibrated through extensive research, such that they would encourage economically prosperous cities with a full variety of residents and job options. They're also closely linked to optimal traffic behavior. With NAM 45, the last major revision to the simulator did adjust a few other elements, encouraging more traffic along high-speed and high-capacity networks (freeways and rail networks). Players who modify the speeds in their traffic simulator files do so at their own risk, and we do not provide support in case something goes wrong.
• Alternatives to adjusting traffic simulator speeds: you can substitute some networks with similar equivalents to adjust your desired speeds. Some examples include replacing straight (ortho and diagonal) avenue segments with two parallel one-ways (yes, this one is faster than road and avenue), or doing the same for the wider NWM networks (RD-6, TLA-7, AVE-6) with runs of RHW-6S or RHW-6C. There's even players who replace Road with RHW-2 to get away with a very high speed and high capacity roadway on a small footprint. Other options include designing your street network in a more hierarchical way, such that it's harder for sims to get away with rat running.
• Rat-running traffic behavior: I do wonder how familiar you are with both the FLEX Turning Lanes (FTL) and the Network Widening Mod (NWM). These network features allow you to increase capacity of surface roads, either at intersections (FTLs) or along your alignments. I've had cases of rat running behavior where I only had FTLs, but lacked NWM segments leading to said intersections. Another option you can use to discourage rat running is making your road network more hierarchical, such that streets don't form full grids, but rather have fewer street intersections with the higher capacity roads. This way, sims would need to detour a lot more to do a rat run.
• Pedmalls: puzzle piece pedmalls (the stuff available for most of the NAM's history, before NAM 47): that's a fundamental limitation of the original pedmall puzzle pieces, introduced all the way back in NAM 12. The early developers of the mod more or less treated them as if they were transit lots, but the reality is they must be treated as networks. In my initiative to modernize pedestrian content for the NAM, I've done lots of research on this subject, and figured out a way to ensure residential development can still happen, while still curbing car traffic within the pedmalls. It's not a perfect solution, but you'll finally be able to use these. We do need to add more functionality and prepare some more tutorial videos, before they can do everything we want them to!
• Pedestrian Revolution Mod Zebra crossings / mid-block crosswalks: motor vehicle traffic (car, bus and truck) does indeed slow down, and that's both cosmetic and functional. The secret behind it is that I used false intersection definitions featuring street and avenue. Turns out the street component actually slows down car traffic, both visually (automata) and functionally (traffic simulator behavior). This effect is very intentional, and I programmed these pieces to discourage car traffic and encourage pedestrian traffic wherever they're placed.
• Rumble Strips, Sleeping Policemen: do you mean speed bumps and speed humps? As in the raised bars going across lanes, forcing car traffic to slow down? If this is what you mean, this is a resounding yes! We'd need to do a similar programming to that of the mid-block crosswalks, and apply it to street, road, and the smaller Network Widening Mod overrides.
• Bus stops on top of road networks: we got a partial answer from @youngwii. The full pair of Road-Top Mass Transit (RTMT) packages available to players consists of Version 3.50 and the 3.60 add-on, linked below, from their SC4 Devotion LEX source (requires LEX account).

https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=1057

https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2247