How do I set up a good metro? Metro Tips?

[Alundra (Alunny)]

Metro stuff is so confusing. I wish I could just place the stations and it would sort itself out but that's not the case...how do I make a metro system that's efficient and works well? How do I know where to put stations?

[grapplehoeker]

Metros are a great way to move your cims around your city. Things you need to consider though before you use them.
They are expensive to layout and expensive to run. Do not expect the ticket sales to be able to pay for the expenses of using them. Therefore make sure you have a very healthy income. When your city is much bigger than the population milestone that allows you build them and if your layout is good, then it might come close to being able to pay for itself or even profitable.
They are noise polluters and so you do not want them near your residential zones to avoid health issues. Use buses and pedestrian pathing in your residential zones to allow your Cims to travel to their nearest metro, so plan for these first.
Once you're ready, use the metro to transport your Cims all around your commercial and office districts. You could also use it to transport them to work at your industrial zone.
Try to avoid sharp bends in the tunnels. Keep them as straight as possible and if they have to make turns, use long gentle curves. This will keep the trains running at full speed without having to slow down too much.
Consider your spacing between stations. Avoid placing them too close to each other.
When you have laid out your metro network. Place one line in a loop going clockwise around it and then another one going in the opposite direction. Pay careful attention to the correct platform.
As for best locations. That would be your best judgement of where you know many Cims already travel to. The commercial districts and office districts are obvious locations in need of a metro, but consider points of interest such as parks, unique buildings and landmarks. Tourists like public transport, so think about your tourist attraction sites.
Also, in the same way I described using buses and pedestrian pathing to bring your Cims to the metro, you can use the metro to bring your Cims to your intercity rail or harbour terminals, which provides access to the outside map connections.
I know it's all a lot to think about, but with practise and trial & error, I'm sure you'll master it ;)

I highly recommend you watch SkyStorme's current Building London series on Youtube. it's an extremely huge undertaking, but it covers so many aspects, including metros, that it's a great tutorial for everything about building a known city.

[Alundra (Alunny)]

Wow thank you so much for those tips, extremely helpful!!

What if the density of the housing is high? Is it okay to metro then or should I stick to busses?

[grapplehoeker]

Noise polluters have a radius of effect. Use your noise overlay to judge. Keep that amount of distance from anywhere Cims live, especially where lots of Cims live such as high density dwellings, otherwise you'll just make a lot of Cims sick!
Additionally, with high density, there is naturally an issue with increased road traffic due to Cim owned vehicles, so consider larger roads in areas of high density and make them tree lined roads to help reduce traffic noise.
I cannot stress how useful pedestrian pathing is. It is so often overlooked by many city builders. Cims can and will walk long distances if they have to, so plan to use pathing as well as buses in your residential zones and this will help reduce the usage of Cim owned vehicles, which will allow your streets to breathe and not be too noisy.

I just found a good example in my screenshot back catalogue (lol)
This one metro station serviced this whole area of this part of the city while the city was still quite small and look at the numbers ;) Lots of pathing and one bus stop on either side of the road servicing that metro station...
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=462730805
and the city as a whole,
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=469109324
The metro network is not elegant and there are many sharp bends and so on, but it is extremely effective for such a small city. The number of tourists is exceptional as this city was built a long time ago, before After Dark and the recent Matchday updates that have significantly improved tourism. Sadly this city cannot be visited anymore due to the landscaping update which completely destroyed a main feature of the city, the invisible highway. But you can still see it in action because I made a vid for posterity ;)
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=467670923

[elStrages]

The best way i have found is this.
1: Straight runs accross your city form residential to industrial.
2: rings of rails running inbetween

Have a look at this screen i took bellow for how i do it.
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/253714203119582214/FA2238F23E21130DC8765DF6ADFBAB3762EE177B/

Key tips.
1: Always build them near your tourist locations, highschools and universities.
2: Always have a bus stop next to it.
3: Link them to your out of city train lines.
4: Surround them in businesses where possible.
5: Minimum 4 maximum 8 stops. If more stops needed make a new line.

[HarryB]

Roughly speaking, you can use this principle:

Use busses/trams to transport passengers to the metro (and train station) (short distance)
Use metro to link key parts in your metropolitan area (medium distance)
Use Train to cover larger distances

[Alundra (Alunny)]

Originally posted by grapplehoeker:

Noise polluters have a radius of effect. Use your noise overlay to judge. Keep that amount of distance from anywhere Cims live, especially where lots of Cims live such as high density dwellings, otherwise you'll just make a lot of Cims sick!
Additionally, with high density, there is naturally an issue with increased road traffic due to Cim owned vehicles, so consider larger roads in areas of high density and make them tree lined roads to help reduce traffic noise.
I cannot stress how useful pedestrian pathing is. It is so often overlooked by many city builders. Cims can and will walk long distances if they have to, so plan to use pathing as well as buses in your residential zones and this will help reduce the usage of Cim owned vehicles, which will allow your streets to breathe and not be too noisy.

Yeah I have the biggest roads I can [with trees too] but I am still bottlenecking. I can't figure it out. Also why do highway ramps have to be one car wide? here in Aus they're usually 2 cars wide and in America they can get even bigger!

I wish there was a way to see the zoning and schools as you're putting in busses etc.

Originally posted by elStrages:

The best way i have found is this.
1: Straight runs accross your city form residential to industrial.
2: rings of rails running inbetween

I've been doing that but it's not looking 100% right ha ha. I must need more fiddling! Can you show me your zoming near a bus stop/train stop in a residential area (or mostly residential)?

[elStrages]

Originally posted by Alundra:

Originally posted by elStrages:

The best way i have found is this.
1: Straight runs accross your city form residential to industrial.
2: rings of rails running inbetween

I've been doing that but it's not looking 100% right ha ha. I must need more fiddling! Can you show me your zoming near a bus stop/train stop in a residential area (or mostly residential)?

Bus stops go everywhere. Just loops them through your streets. and if you make a bus route one direction, make sure you have another covering the other way, or at least another route functioing in the area. Make sure that only two bus routes use a bus stop otherwise you can get a lot of build up if you need 3 different stops on a pice of road next to each other next to a metro station or train station then do it :)

[AZNMamba]

Take a look at some of the worlds best metro system. I learned to make great transport by integrating Seoul and Tokyo metro/bus routes into my cities. I always end up making a HUGE profit from my metro. Both Seoul and Tokyo have a loop that takes citizens to all major areas of the city (Line 2 for Seoul and JR line for Tokyo) Then there are lines that basically go right to left and down to up with transfer stations. They both have a huge transfer terminal where more than 3 lines converge.

London's transport is known to be well designed so it prob is better for reference if you don't know Korean or Japanese. Manhattan metro also follows a similar layout with Seoul and Tokyo, but on a much smaller scale using a grid layout.