A fully functional highway to avenue connection in SimCity 3000

Contributor/author(s): Epiphender

Direct highway to avenue connections involving tunnels and bridges are aesthetically pleasing, but create broken links in the transportation system. I have come up with a fully functional alternative, using onramps. "Better bulldozing" is required (article #1305).

The first step is to build a length of highway at least 8 tiles long. Place one road tile one square in:

Build your onramp:

Remove ONLY the shoulder:

With the shoulder gone, you can now remove the highway without losing the ramp:

In this next view, I've rotated the map 90 degrees.

Place highway at least 6 tiles long, touching the existing onramp (this is not necessary, but it allows you to build the next onramp close as possible to the other one). Place your single road tile, as shown:

Build your onramp. Notice the two arch out at the bottoms in different directions. This is for different directions of traffic flow. For the connection to work, the ramps must curve away from each other, as shown. Otherwise, sims will only be able to use half the highway, or none at all if the ramps curve towards each other:

Once again, remove the shoulder:

Now it is safe to remove the highway. Remember the two lanes must line up with the correct ramps; each lane/ramp has a designated traffic direction. This is why the ramp construction highways cannot be used in the final design:

Now, place your highway by dragging from a few tiles behind the ramps up as far as the game will let you. Your highway is now connected to both ramps. Do not remove the construction tile:

Place railroad tracks under the highway at every square that falls between the first onramp and where the second onramp joins onto the highway, as shown:

Now you can remove the highway construction tile and any leftover railroad:

You now have a compact and fully functional highway to avenue connection:

The tracks can be hidden by trees or buildings:

You can also remove the avenue trees if you like, as outlined in article #0395.

As you can see, sims can drive on both sides:

Ramps can be placed farther from one another, just be sure to place the rail underneath the highway accordingly. They cannot, however, be placed any closer together than this.