transitbuddie

I always tend to start cities with mass transit systems (typically a bus system). I put a bus lane between two oneway streets and place a stop every 5-10 tiles or so. If the line becomes overcrowded and congested, I would upgrade it a light rail line. The bus lane saves the space for the light rail so I wouldn't have to destory any buildings. As the city grows in size (and more roads are being congested), I would eventually phase out the bus lines and create more light rail and subway lines.

If I can remember, I believe apple + click makes a right click. If that doesn't work, try the control and option keys.

Go to: NetworkAddonMod, then double click on Modfiles. There should be a folder inside that called LEFT_HAND_VERSIONS_ONLY_Additional_Plugin_Files . If you delete this folder, I believe that it will change the design back to US/European.

English: I am going to eat a sandwich. Chinese (pronounciation using the roman alphabet- pinyin): wo qu chi yi ge san ming zhi. Translate: To be or not to be, that is the question.

I'm pretty sure it's Springfield, IL.

Date: 10/3/2005 6:06:15 PM Author: halo_lover LOL San Francisco didn't repaint the SEPTA cars they bought? OMG that's hilarious.quote> Muni, in the last few years has been buying PCC cars from around the country, and the world for the F Market line, a historic streetcar route. I believe Muni kept the original livery of SEPTA to show where the car was from. There are some streetcars from Boston that have the Boston Elevated symbol on the side, and same with the Milan trams; the Italian commercials and logos are still on the car. Here's a picture of the Newark subway (NJ Transit streetcar) in San Francisco: http://world.nycsubway.org/perl/show?16107 The monorail idea for rapid transit in London is very interesting. I'm not a big fan of elevated trains as it can block views and it could be hard getting through some streets and might not be able to take the most direct path to get from A to B, but it is a cheaper alternative to the cross rail line, which requires a lot of underground tunnels

I also think that the tension of the wires pushes the pantograph down. In the San Francisco, the pantographs go very low in the Market Street tunnel. Here's a picture at the Church Street Station.

Evian-Les-Bains, Haute Savoie, France

Vinnie, Cousin

Alicante, Spain

Quimper, Bretagne, France

Complete guess: Wannsee, Germany

Le Mans, France

I'm thinking it's in northern Italy.

Angers, Pays de la Loire, France

Date: 8/19/2005 7:06:02 PM Author: Bank I've ridden many public transports in my life, and trust me even the very best are only a begrudging, forced choice to an autoquote> No way! Amsterdam, Berlin, London, Brussels, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Chicago, Portland, Washington, New York City--none of these are begrudging. Sure, you can go places in a car--but the places to go are already linked to trains and if there aren't any trains there aren't enough people to sustain an interesting place to go anyway! Parking is a nightmare, so is traffic, and so is driving in a car in general.quote> I absolutely agree with you, Bank. When I lived in Paris, I avoided riding in any car for one year. There is no building in Paris that is more than 500 meters from a subway stop. In the suburbs, the RATP (the transport company) has such a good and reliable bus system to and from train stations, you can go anywhere (except for in the middle of the forests in the suburbs, where no one lives...). The bus system is faster than the cars as the traffic is horrible in the center and the buses can go down dedicated lanes. Plus walking is always an option! --------- We are trying to get a light rail down Geary Boulevard in San Francisco. We had a streetcar line line about 50 years ago, but it was torn out. The scheduled time from the Beach to the Transbay Terminal (downtown) was 41 minutes on the streetcar, but now with the buses, it takes more than an hour. San Francisco passed Prop. K, a 1/2 cents sales tax that will help the expansion of rapid transit in San Francisco, but none of the studies has focused on the Geary light rail. The funding that SF Muni gave to the Third Street Light Rail project left Geary with not enough money to build a light rail line, although there are more than 50,000 people (per day) who take the lines down Geary Boulevard and over 100,000 passengers who take Geary Boulevard Lines and the adjacent lines (within a two block radius), comparing to the Third Street lines with 15,000 passengers per day. We are trying to get bus lanes down Geary, but we will not have any sort of transit improvement until 2010-2011. We are going to build rail ready BRT lanes. There will already be rails in the ground so we can quickly convert the right of way lanes to light rail in 2020-2030. The total cost of building the BRT (phase 1) and the light rail subway tunnel will cost about 1.35 billion dollars. Of course we will not have the funding for any kind of rapid transit for the next few years.

San Francisco has a light rail network and we are trying to extend the existing network. There are 6 lines, the J Church, K Ingleside, L Taravel, M Oceanview, N Judah, and the S Castro Shuttle. All lines start underground in the downtown part of San Francisco, underneath Market Street and exit the tunnel and extend towards the southern parts of town. San Francisco used to have a very extensive streetcar/light rail system. There used to be one that correponded to almost every bus line. They took out almost every line because of operating costs. Now the city regrets the decision made in the 1950s, as many of the corridors that used to have light rail lines have a lot of congestion (Geary Boulevard/Van Ness). We are trying to rebuild a few light rail lines, but the funding the city does not have enough money to build any kind of rapid transit for the time being. Some great pictures of the Muni Metro light rail system can be found here: http://world.nycsubway.org/us/sf/munimetro.html Around 1998, Muni replaced the computer system in the Muni Metro, which caused the Metro Meltdown, where the light rail system had many flaws and was malfunctioning. Now the system is very fast and I can get downtown from Haight St in less than 10 minutes on the N Judah.

In San Francisco, we have the Caltrain, a commuter rail system linking the southern suburbs to San Francisco. Caltrain introduced a Baby Bullet train, which is an express train that skips most stops and cuts the travel times in half. From San Francisco to San Jose on the Baby Bullet, it takes a little less than an hour, and in the car it takes about 1:30. http://www.caltrain.com Photo of a new Baby Bullet Caltrain Caltrain map One of the best commuter rail systems I've been on is the Paris RER and Transilien. There are different commuter rail lines departing from every train station, and the RER lines that cross through the center of Paris (in tunnels). There are double decker trains on most lines and almost all of the lines are electric, instead of diesel. Most of the trains are ontime (except for when the SNCF is on strike). I usually prefer the trains that depart from the train stations rather than the RER lines because the cars are cleaner and the trains are more punctual. http://idf.sncf.com/FR/ Picture of a new RER / Transilien train RER and Transilien map

Has anyone thought about making some kind of NAM or MOD to create trolleybuses in Simcity 4? A trolleybus is a bus with overhead wires (just like light rail, but has to have two wires for a complete electrical circuit) with zero emissions and has a cheaper maintenance costs. Many trolleybuses can be found in San Francisco.

What about giving a shot at the Berlin S-Bahn trains. They run on elevated rail in the center and on the ground in the suburbs. A lot of pictures show catenary above the trains, but the S-Bahn trains of Berlin do not use the catenary, instead they use a third rail. Few linked pictures: http://www.eisenbahn-kurier.de/report/berlin_lehrter/2002.07.04_s-bahn_straussberg.jpg http://www.bahnbilder.de/bilder/3711.jpg

I think it may be possible to make every bus in the game a trolleybus (so there wouldn't be anymore gas buses), if we were to develop some kind of catenary, just like the catenary that Fukada released not too long ago. We could place the catenary on the roads and then use the Morifari's bus blockers to make sure the buses stay connected to the overhead wires. And of course, we would have to put overhead poles on the buses.