Installing transport on River run.

[Peter Griffin]

My city has reached the point of getting to a good size and until now I never had the budget to install anything other than roads to get everyone from A to B. The below screenshot shows my layout and how I've zoned:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1767407023

I started at the top and moved down and to the right, adding the different zone types as they became available. This map shows the traffic hotspots:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1767407051

I had the foresight to use 4-lane roads right from the start since if I needed to upgrade them I can do so without bulldozing entire blocks and starting over.

This last map shows where the resources are, most of which are outside the city limits save for some fertile land, some of which according to the map lies in the river. Not sure how that works, but anyway.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1767407104

I'll probably expand to the west and connect to the highway as I have a lot of incoming trucks in the north and helping them getting directly to the industrial sector would be handy. Also to claim the oil and forest resources that way.

I'll also connect to the highway in the east as there's going to be an increase in agricultural traffic when I make use of the farmland.

TLDR: I've unlocked most of the transport options except ships and planes, I know I'm going to have to use some combination of buses, metros and trains but when it comes to specifics I'm lost. I forgot to say, it's only now that I'm running enough of a surplus to set up something amazing.

[grandmasterfuzz]

I'd start off with buses first, nice cheap way of using public transport. Could then upgrade busy routes to tram lines, which as you've used the 4 Lane roads, should work well. Looks good so far though!

[mbutton15]

You've got some nice straight roads which are ideal for bus routes.
Having said that, your main arterial routes have junctions too close together. That is causing the roads to turn red as vehicles can't clear the junctions before more arrive. So your buses will get held up in the traffic.

There's nothing wrong with grid layout, but ideally you need to keep the main arterial roads flowing. See in the screenshot below how I have kept the number of junctions to a minimum on my arterial routes.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1426277342
OK, this is a very boring layout, but it was for the Mass Transit DLC train scenario which required reaching a certain population very quickly. The point is to show how local roads come off the main routes to create the zoneable area, while keeping larger distance between junctions on the main routes.

EDIT - Thought I better show some better examples:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1767647712
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1767647738
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1767647760

[Peter Griffin]

Interesting, looks like I need to forego some of my intersections then, I'll give that a shot on new areas that I build. A couple of questions though- how have you zoned on your cities, and are those highways around the edge? I'm assuming the black lines are trains or metro lines? I haven't built any of my own yet.

[mbutton15]

The black lines are Metro. The thinner black lines are pedestrian underground walkways.
I'll sort out a city wide zone overview later today. Funny thing is, this city is based on someone else's. I saw a screenshot that I liked the look of the highway layout and just wanted to have a go at that map myself. This is the screenshot I saw:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1712224362
It's the Lagoon Shore map. It actually doesn't have half the highways you can see, so I'm having to build them section by section as I unlock the tiles.

EDIT - City Zoning:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1768100384

[Peter Griffin]

Originally posted by mbutton15:

The black lines are Metro. The thinner black lines are pedestrian underground walkways.
I'll sort out a city wide zone overview later today. Funny thing is, this city is based on someone else's. I saw a screenshot that I liked the look of the highway layout and just wanted to have a go at that map myself. This is the screenshot I saw:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1712224362
It's the Lagoon Shore map. It actually doesn't have half the highways you can see, so I'm having to build them section by section as I unlock the tiles.

EDIT - City Zoning:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1768100384

Wow, you have a lot more residential than I expected, and you have a direct route from the highway to industry. First thing I'll do with my city is connect mine in the north-west corner in a similar way. I've also tweaked the layout a bit as I realised it wasn't quite as uniform as I first thought.

I'll also have to fix my screenshots too! :D

EDIT: seems all I had to do was use the short-form link instead of the long.

[mbutton15]

Originally posted by Peter Griffin:

Wow, you have a lot more residential than I expected, and you have a direct route from the highway to industry. First thing I'll do with my city is connect mine in the north-west corner in a similar way. I've also tweaked the layout a bit as I realised it wasn't quite as uniform as I first thought.

As you probably noticed my population is a lot smaller than your city (about 20k smaller). I only use low-density residential these days so I can spread it out more and get physically larger cities than if I also used high-density residential.

Uniformity is best done by creating assets. That's how I did this city:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=864783571
Not one I'm particularly proud of these days, but then I didn't know much about the game back then !!

[Alpheus]

To OP, you can probably improve the traffic in the red segments by simply turning off the traffic lights in all those intersections. This exploits the fact that the game does not model traffic accidents *grin*.

[Peter Griffin]

Originally posted by Alpheus:

To OP, you can probably improve the traffic in the red segments by simply turning off the traffic lights in all those intersections. This exploits the fact that the game does not model traffic accidents *grin*.

I didn't know you could do that! After reading your post I did give it a try, didn't affect the number of trucks barrelling through! :D

I'll have to expand my city limits both north and south to take control of their respective intersections and create some better access. I might have to bulldoze some of my commercial district if I'm going to run a highway through my city.

Another benefit to expanding south is that I'll be able to connect to the east-west railway.