Street Parking

[magicd1]

If I don't allow street parking will I need more parking lots?

[Justin]

You can't build parking lots in this game as far as I'm aware.

[Colin]

Nope. Cims have the magical ability to carry vehicles around in their pockets. That might sound like sarcasm, but it's not, lol. They totally do this. If you go down to street view, you can see this happening everywhere. When they leave parks, pull car out of pocket, when they leave subways, pull car out of pocket. When they leave any building that doesn't have nearby parking, pull car out of pocket. Street parking, I'm pretty sure, is purely aesthetic. Unless you count the very minimal noise reduction you get from tree lined streets...which I don't because it's pretty insignificant.

[Mansen]

Originally posted by Justin:

You can't build parking lots in this game as far as I'm aware.

Correct - The parking lots shown in the game are purely cosmetic. Even the ones on the streets.

You could consider turning those streets into bike laned ones, and encouraging bicycles - It has had a huge impact on traffic in all of my cities, to the point where gridlock is gone in most non-industrial areas.

[Hawk Tuah]

There are lots of parking lots and parking garages in the Workshop and they work just fine. To test it, build a parking lot, and then change the nearby streets to a type without parking. You will see the parking lot fill up.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=500057046

[Mansen]

Yes they will fill up - But it won't have any mechanical effect on the game.

[Storm_XL]

I did a test on a new map/city with parking lots (and gathering statistics over 50 in game years). It looks like they generate a lot of tourists and are used for parking cars as well.
City:
- 1 custom airport
- 2 Passenger harbor
- 1 Cargo harbor
- All the needed service buildings
- 2 bus lines
- Taxi's everywhere
- High residential with an average of 1800 cims who live there ;-)
- No low residential
- No low/high commercial
- No industry
- A lot of parking spaces
- more parking spaces
- and lot more parking spaces ;-)

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=577360303

So I think I can say that they have a mechanical effect on the game :-)

[Mansen]

Alright - The buildings themselves may have STATS that encourage certain kinds of people. But the act of having a parking lot doesn't do anything for the game. The game's traffic isn't simulated in that way at all (and thank god, or we'd be lucky to get above a couple thousand inhabitants, if everyone was simulated... just look at Tropico 5 where that IS the case)

Happy? Good :D

[Zenith]

Parking lots don't exist in the game unless it is something in After Dark

[Hawk Tuah]

The reason you see parking lots generate tourists is because the parking lot creator cheated by added a tourist demand to parking lot. This makes tourists think the parking lot is a park, when in reality it's just a boring parking lot.

The Better Parking Lots collection I posted above does not add a tourist demand to the parking lots or parking garages. But you will see that cars will still park in them, so they do function on their own.

However, there is usually plenty of parking along the streets so the parking lots don't fill up much unless there is no street parking nearby. For example if you use the grass/tree lined streets that don't have street parking the cars will move into the parking lots.

Part of the problem is also that the sims seem to prefer walking over driving so we end up with too many walkers and not enough cars.