davidhogan

Mira Mesa's Traffic Just Can't Be Stopped Here we are facing southeast at the north end of the Black Mountain Bypass. This freeway-graded road was built to take traffic out of the neighborhood to its west. The existing avenue was so congested people would take any other route avaiable to reach the job centers in southeast Mira Mesa. An overview of the Black Mountain Bypass, showing where it took over Black Mountain Rd, and where it took over the path of Hillary Blvd. A close up of the intersection of Black Mountain Rd and Hillary Blvd. The names have all remained the same. (The freeway portions are Black Mountain Rd, and Hillary Freeway, and also named the Black Moutain Bypass in it's entirety.) The southern end of the BMB in SE Mira Mesa. Here you can see the offices and retail locations that all the residents of Mira Mesa are so eager to get to. And we go north a few miles to northwest Rancho Bernardo, along I-15. These terraced houses start at only $600,000 for a cozy lot with a freeway view. Dave

Miramar Continues to Grow Miramar has continued to grow, so much to the point there's another WalMart just 2 miles west of here. (Right near I-805.) This WalMart is now scheduled to be removed, and several developers have expressed interest, but no finalized decisions have been made. Most of the houses shown above were recently grown, except those on the far sides of the avenues, and at the immediate bottom of the shot. If I'd gotten a before picture, this would have been a nice example of infill. D'oh. This post was edited to add the after shot - the WalMart is gone, replaced by CostCo and the Miramar Executive Hotel & Conference Center. Dave

I am so gonna copy your bridge. Great work! Oh, and happy Thanksgiving. Dave

i never thought sc4 could look so realistic. great work, once again dude. i notice you use a ton of streets, do you have much congestion on them? Dave

Date:11/22/2004 2:10:48 PM Author:jay_allen1978 looks really good, just a quick question though. I do not see a mass transit system. san diego uses it alot, not to mention they have almost completed an extension on their trolley system. Is there going to be one soon?...otherwise...great work!!! im impressedquote> In San Diego County, probably there won't be a trolley system ever. The real SD Trolley is based on existing track, that was already in place while the city grew around it. Though some parts (like the Mission Valley extension) use new track, for the most part the current and expected system will be routings planned over a century ago. What I do have is a subway that I started adding once downtown just got too tall. It runs basically from Lindbergh Field (the airport near downtown), to Barrio Logan at the moment. It's one loop for the Harbor Island/Airport neighborhoods, a second loop for downtown (which has slowly grown into 4 concentric loops, which is almost a grid by now). There's then a third loop in Barrio Logan, and a separate subway loop in Northeast Coronado. So why the subway loops? They feed the ferrys, which although they don't show up in the region census views, are all over the bay. I didn't want car/passenger ferrys, since those would just bypass the bridge then, so they're passenger only fed by subway loops. I'll try to get some subway maps together for SD soon, I can't believe I haven't posted any by now. As far as the trolley, would I like to add one? Yes. Will I? Probably not, since it's really just too much work to go through even every city from Downtown to the border, clear a path, make stations, and try to line it up with the cities above and below it without messing up traffic flow on the road networks as a result. I could see the subway extending as a single line parallel to I-5 maybe, but really the traffic is good enough as is that it'd really just be a way to raise taxes without helping my Sims enough. Dave

Date:11/22/2004 5:29:05 AM Author:UCSBClassics53 I'd like to make a suggestion in that you should also build the new CA 11 that will run from the I-905/CA 125 interchange eastward to a new Port of Entry. http://www.dot.ca.gov/dist11/facts/11.pdf quote> I've actually been planning on it, the last freeway map is mostly a concept of about where I'm thinking they'll go. Much like I added the 615 freeway near I-5/I-15 and the 296, I'm sure there's others that just due to SC4's traffic engine will be needed, or maybe they'll just come as adjustments to the planned roads. I even have a sign ready. As for my aircraft carrier, I've been trying to keep the Naval bases where there really is ship access in the bay - you'd be really surprised by how easily they seem to move the carriers out there. And, a few quick shots to show the suburban areas I've been working in eastern National City. The South Bay Parkway (CA-54) as it runs towards I-805 in southeast National City. This whole area is an upper-middle class grid, framed by CA-54, I-5, and I-805. Part of the reason for such rapid growth is the convenient locations of grocery stores, restaurants, and hotels with conference centers. Dave

i was thinking about making some fence lots on my own, but if you don't mind putting the whole package on the StEx i'd love the extra variety. Dave

Date:11/21/2004 1:46:02 AM Author:UCSBClassics53 Which lot did you use for all that green space on the map? I'm talking about places like Mount Soledad Natural Park and Balboa Park.. thanks...quote> Those are actually just open green spaces placed ad nasuem with god mode trees (usually) lightly sprinkled over them. It takes a bit of time, but also creates the total YIMBY effect that a park like that has for $$$ residents. It's also a nice way to make sure I don't accidentally build into parks, rather than just leaving them unzoned which usually results in some accidental growth within parks. Dave

in the NAM general thread tropod has posted a link several times to the newest version. the mods section is currently unable to be updated cause of upgrades to ST, so find his post on the last page or two of NAM general. dave

How Has San Diego Grown? There's a little Photoshop trick there: I overlaid a recent shot of Downtown with an old night shot. Hopefully you can see the ghosts of the new buildings over what was there. It's weird seeing how my city has grown, and once I put this together I figured I'd share it with everyone. Dave

National City On the Map In Southwest National City the South Bay Blvd neighborhood is quickly becoming San Diego's Second Downtown. High-density residential, office towers, and some local neighborhood shops give the area it's own separate charm - and considering the suburbs are only about 1/2 to 1/3 grown out, you can be sure it will keep growing up. And from over the Pacific you can see parts of the National City Naval Station, the NC Marina, the waterfront with it's high-wealth condos, and on the far side of I-5, San Diego County's first proper Mosque. Dave

One of the mods I'm using is a 10x commute speed mod, that i modified so the walking speeds weren't so high that nobody would drive, and did a few other tweaks to make busses slower (so that only $ sims use them, even though this region has 0 bus stops), and I use a healthy amount of avenues and freeways (generally similar to what San Diego really has) that allows for a lot of cars. The capacities for all the networks was modified to allow for more realistic traffic counts. (Like, most avenues here hit a F classification at about 10,000 cars/hr, so for an Avenue in the game I made the capacity 7500, since congestion starts to affect speeds at about a D rating. I try to keep congestion to a minimum, but there's some areas I just can't help it seems. The islands near I-5 south of Mount Soledad are part of Mission Bay. These islands (in real life) were created as part of a dredging project in the 1950's to allow better water flow through the bay. This in turn helped to reduce pollution, and created some great parklands for people to use. The project didn't work out as well as it was planned, so most of the islands have remained as parking lots and open spce. The only major business (other than a few resort hotels) in real life is Sea World. If anyone wants to BAT it, I'll put it right in the right spot. In my San Diego County after I had started developing those areas, I decided I wanted to leave a bit of open space. I may actually remove some housing and add more open spaces, but I wouldn't quote me on that. Dave

San Diego County Page 7 http://img132.exs.cx/img132/9951/sdc22mp.jpg width=600 border=0>

Re-Constructing San Diego Bay A local developer may have pulled a practical joke on the residents of two new towers that were part of recent efforts to improve delapidated buildings. See if you can spot the two duplicate buildings on opposite sides of the bridge. (I tried to keep it easy.) Dave

anyone who doubts the accuracy of this region should grab a map of edmonton. i'm in awe dude. excellent work, as always. (and i'm not too generous with the ducks.) dave

I can't wait to see more closeups of these areas, everything's looking real good, once again. Dave

if you keep building areas this nicely you'll have to make sure to label the real life and in game shots. dave

Regional Transportation Plan Updated http://img132.exs.cx/img132/3820/roads-20041116sm.jpg width=500 border=0> As shown here, the regional transportation plan has been updated to give our residents the opportunity to see how we expect the region to grow. Not all freeways are guaranteed to be built, as some are going to be dependent on land costs and revenues available. It's a link! Dave

South Bay Growth The Standard Sattelite Shot. The newly grown cities are all labelled, and the growth of CA-75 can be seen here also. Here's Southeast Imperial Beach. Beautiful sandy beaches that aren't usually that crowded. Please, stop by and spend your tourist dollars here! The freeway path of CA-75 along the south edge of San Diego Bay. Most of the early-morning traffic through here is eastbound, as shown here. Northeast Imperial Beach is mostly middle and upper income families living in suburban sprawl on a large grid. Tons of big-box retailers are located all over the area. Southeast Chula Vista has a good number of strip malls with every retailer you could imagine - or so it seems. The CA-75/I-5 interchange shown here was originally built as a simple T, and local developers failed to notice the planned conversion to a full cloverleaf with a freeway stub extension once these areas reached full build-out. Many residents were furious when the local Rite-Aid and Perkins were bulldozed about 15 minutes after this shot was taken. Although it can't be seen, there was a temporary I-5 ramp south of this shot, but all traffic to Mexico was forced off the freeway for about 6 blocks. This caused major disruptions for local residents. The final product was well worth it, and polls show almost all the local residents agree. The small S-Curve was built to protect as many exsting houses as possible east of the interchange. The current east end of CA-75. It's hoped to connect to I-805 if the funding is available, but local residents are not too optimistic since I-805 South hasn't even been built yet, and CA-54 dead ends east of National City at the moment. Thanks for the comments guys, it reminds me it's worth the time to put updates like this together. Dave

wow, this continues to remind me of my past visits to SF. great job. dave

that's some creative lot editing! it's definitely close enough that anyone familiar with edmonton i'm sure would get what you're showing there, judging from the real picture. dave

Date:11/13/2004 7:15:30 PM Author:superchad cool, when will the city be completely finished and looking like the real one. quote> it'll be done after the last time that question needs to be asked. dave

Hey hey! Thanks to all for the comments. For the # of cars, it's an automata adjustment partially, and if I show traffic, I usually take the shot at 9 am or 5 pm, to really get it filled up looking. Also, other than areas served by the subway (Downtown, Harbor Island, Barrio Logan, Coronado, Banker's Hill and Golden Hill) there's no mass transit. It forces a lot more traffic. And then the main reason I posted: Thanks to any and all who nominated me for the Golden Llama for Most Realistic CJ. I really appreciate it, though I have to admit I'm very relieved that JD won for Edmonton . It's always a pleasure to lose to the best. Dave