Entry no.30 - Looper Junction, vers. 2.0
Over the past year I've rebuilt the entire highway network as it had previously had been almost entirely maxis-highway based. The hardest and most time consuming part of that process is rebuilding the major interchange between highways. Just when the rebuilding process was nearly done, the NAM team goes out and gives us NAM 33/34. Because of this I've had to rebuild several of the major interchanges, yet again. Thanks a lot NAM team... for being so DAMN AWESOME! 
because building interchanges has always been one of the things I love the most about playing sim city 4.
RHW constructions can be a times frustrating but overall I enjoy the challenge of building an interchange in as compact of a space as physically possible while maintaining smooth curves and grades, I liken it to playing a logic game and probably nothing else I do in my day to day life makes me think as much I have to in order to 'solve' the problems that I encounter when building RHW interchanges(not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing 
)
Looper Junction was one of the more difficult rebuilds, because I had to join a diagonal highway with an orthogonal one in middle of a city on uneven land.
The end result of the original RHW rebuild using NAM 32, shown in entry 20 and seen below, required me to create a custom piece in order to compete the vision of the interchange I had in mind.
But as cool as that interchange looked, from a real word perspective it had numerous flaws most of which weren't correctable until the release of NAM 34. I did a minor rebuild with NAM 33 which was shown as part of entry 26 but I'll skip those changes here as they only correct a couple of the many flaws described below.
The main issues;
- 10 slow speed turns(numbered T1 to T10) that is a 90 degree turn within 2 spaces
- 4 slow speed merging on ramps
- 2 slow speed off ramps
- 3 hairpin turns
- 2 unnecessary ramps
- 1 weave zone
- and 1 very unrealistic tunnel
One of the biggest issues was with what I called the "secret ramp" noted above as tunnel 2. The ramp runs underneath the entire interchange and connects the NB702 with the SB 700 which takes commuters into Downtown Dresden. A long tunnel built underneath an interchange like that is not realistic. I'm quite sure that if I didn't show what that tunnel was for it's purpose would not be clear. It looks more like it's connecting some other road from off the screen to the interchange then the ramp it actually serves. This ramps as well as the corresponding return ramp, where sharp turn 8 is located, were added to make the interchange fully accessible. That is you can connect to all possible routes going into the interchange from any direction. In the past I used to think more ramps are better and missing ramps makes an interchange incomplete. It's easy to think that way when building interchanges in a self contained perspective rather than observing the network as a whole. Turns out this ramp is completely unnecessary and actually an exercise in bad urban planning.
Sims in SC4 inherently only want to travel short distances to work, that is either within the same city or travel to the next city tile, it's rare to see them go further than that. This is why I originally designed the RHW highway network with multiple options to travel to the same location. Most of the sim's in the city want to travel downtown for work, where the densest concentration of commercial jobs are. But the amount of jobs available within the next two large tiles amounts to 20 times the number available in Dresden. In real life commutes of 20, 30 or more kilometers are quite common and most sims in Dresden should be traveling further north to Central Pretoria for work. I've been redesigning the highway network with that in mind, which means curtailing the number of interchanges and eliminating duplicate ramps.
There already are two highway exits off of the northbound 702 connecting to high capacity roads(avenues) that can take commuters coming from areas south of Dresden into the downtown area.
Sims traveling from the neighborhood of Valhalla Park would reach downtown via Genosha Blvd. while those traveling from Woodside would likely be split between Esna Parkway & other local roads. The larger concern is for those coming from points south of Dresden the population of which is 3 times as much. They would likely be split between the two existing exits. From the city boarder the Esna park route is 2.6km and has 7 intersections, while the Genosha Blvd route is 3.1km with only 2 intersections before arriving at downtown Dresden. Considering the above, a third ramp at Looper Junction to route traffic to the same location for the population catchment area is completely unnecessary. Especially so when as mentioned above, most sims from these area should continue down the 702 towards Central Pretoria.
The elimination of this ramp(NB 702 to SB 700) and the corresponding ramp going in the opposite direction(NB 700 to SB 702) eliminates the unrealistic tunnel, a short merging ramp and one tight turn.
This also eliminated the the weave zone. A weave zone is as an area where the highway entrance and exit use the same lane and the entrance and exit are quite close together. These areas require caution and cooperation because vehicles share the same lane to slow to exit the highway while other vehicles are using it to increase speed to enter the highway. Planners try to avoid building modern interchanges with weave zones. The other big change was courtesy of the new NAM. Thanks to the improved flex fly pieces, 8 of the other 9 tight curves were eliminated as were all the slow speed merging on ramps. While I didn't have the space to build full acceleration/merging lanes, the curve were smoothed out allowing vehicles to at least enter the highway at speed. Vehicles in the right lane are still expected to slow down for and yield to these vehicles if necessary or otherwise face being fined. Also drivers in Pretoria are thoroughly trained to use the proper techniques in these types of circumstances 
One of the 3 hairpin turns was taken out(#3) while the other two remained as is(#1 & #2). There just wasn't enough space to replace theses with any other type of ramp but aside from that I like how they look, they're part of what gives Looper Junction it's name.
the end results of the NAM 34 rebuild:
slow speed turns - 10 before / 1 after
slow speed merging on ramps - 4 before / 0 after
slow speed off ramps - 2 before / 0 after
hairpin turns - 3 before / 2 after
weave zones - 1 before / 0 after
Time for some screens,
Looper Junction now has a 3-level stack.
The level 2 ramp is the SB702 ramp to downtown Dresden via Baker St. The parking lot next to it is the overflow lot for Lacross Stadium, cars enter & exit the lot underneath the ramp.
The southern terminus of the 700 before it turns into Esna Blvd. and downtown Dresden. The highway grounds are keep clear of weeds and well manicured in this section to give the core a clean image and attract business.
These are the new higher speed on & off ramps from the 702
The NB 702 to EB 700 ramp runs below
extensive mmp work also helps to make the interchange look more realistic, also much improved from the previous version.
The hairpin curve on the WB700 to NB702 ramp remains...
...but the entry curve onto the 702 has been smoothed out allowing vehicles to accelerate and enter the 702 at a decent rate of speed.
Where's a weed wacker when you need one?
Tunnel entrance
The three curves section
One purely aesthetic feature was added inside the interchange...
Dresden's new city council wanted to beautify the appearance of the interchange and so they added what they called the "A Tribute to World Peace". Really it's just some manicured bushes & weeds made to look like a large peace sign. Though at 240 feet in diameter it's said to be the largest peace sign in the world.
Peace & weed's
Now let's see what she looks like in her entirety
looking South central section - day
looking north central section - night
looking south, entire area - night
looking north, entire area - day
looking west - night
looking east - day
A couple of higher resolution cuts below. You have to save the image if you want to see the finer details as you can't really see them on ST
looking south - day
looking north - night
I'd like to say this will be that last time Looper Junction will be rebuilt, but you just never know what the NAM team has in store for us next.
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