The newest update! I have been working all week on this update (plus one that will show the developments in Taraville and the beginnings of East Port!) so I hope you like it.

There are tons of pics in this post, so I shinked a bunch of them to help your ol' computers out! (you're so welcome!)

Also, I had never mentioned that Balboa City is fully made up of Chincago-style lots. This will shift shortly as we gett deeper into the 20th Century.

The City planners in Balboa City wanted to place a mass transit corridor along the southern foot of Balboa terrace, connecting in the west with the industrial sector, and north to the terrace subway and along to the downtown subway. Here is the map of the proposal:

The goal of the project is to insert this new light rail line with minimal disruption to the community.  With this first section, the strategy was to use abandoned or underused builds as paths.

First, new connecter roads were built around the existing roads:

Once the new roads were connected, the older roads were removed:

The light rail is put into place, while two buildings to the left were removed. Plazas were added in to add to the neighborhood's value, making the station a fine central component of the street:

Just to the west, the light rail meets up with the existing line (to the left and bottom). This major disruption in service did not please... well, anyone. (I really hate how the EL pops up when you bulldoze a GLR tile!)

But once all the work was completed, the sims just loved the job that was done:

Here, we see the tram line extending east away from the aforementioned commercial zone and towards Balboa Terrace. The stations are close together to handle the denser housing:

Even further to the east, the light rail extends to the wealthier area, at the foot of Balboa Terrace. Their dislike of noise and any disruption makes this portion of the route the most political difficult to plan.

The problem is that the City planners want to connect the tram line to the subway in the upper right corner. The most direct route would be to use the road that leads up the the terrace and the subway line. However, this road is heavily used and therefore any construction would be very disruptive.

The decision came to rebuild the street to the direct west of the main road, serving only a few residents. Here, the existing street is torn out:

Though it will be removed soon, the street to the north that generally serves no one will be kept for a short time to serve the one large mansion (the three houses to the right will be torn down down. You should have see the City Council meetings! All those lower-income people to the west fighting for better transit access to the nicer jobs downtown, while three well-off families fought the government's claim to eminent domain):

The tunnel entrance is built!

And here is the line, finished!

And don't forget to connect it to the subway!

In other news, the power facility had to be upgraded recently. Older gas plants were replaced with two new oil plants (one was already there). While residents protested the addition of higher-polluting plants, the City argued that the higher energy output and better land use was actually more environmentally sound.

The Mayor, however, felt the pressure from the residents over the power plant decision. In response, the Mayor put long-standing plans for a major park on Balboa Terrace on the fast track to ease concerns. This park will act as the centerpiece for a huge group of developments in the near future.

Here are some of the new developments the came up over the few years after the park was built.

After years of planning, research, and political fights, the Congress of Balboa was finally built! This gives Balboa City some much-needed flair as the capital of the nation. The gardening, however, will be needing some work (and pay no attention to the missing flag prop in front of the school)

As part of this development (located to the east of the Balboa Terrace Park) a new avenue was built to connect the residential district with Downtown. Previously, only a couple of smaller streets and subway lines served downtown, preventing much growth from taking place.

Since the city's rapid growth in the 1930's, the City decided to move away from new streetcar networks and to using more modern EL and subway lines (the light rail built earlier in this post was built into the original network, so the aforementioned policy does not apply). However, there had been much debate over how and where the streetcars would terminate downtown. With the Downtown subway network not fully built, but many buildings coming up , a terminal was built at the foot of the Terrace Tunnel. In the future, this line will go underground to link with the subway.

Also, the industry needed some room to grown, so a connection was at long last built to the eastern peninsula. The City already has redevelopment plans in the works, but the need for jobs was too great, so the plan was rushed.

And here is a nice, wide look at where the city stands tonight.

So, there is Balboa City as it stands. I'm happy with how this is going so far and--if you are too (or just hate my work and want to keep watching me fail ) then check back soon to see the update for Taraville and the beginnings of East Port!

Thanks to all for the reads and comments!