Need help with understanding road hierarchy

[Gnasty Gnorc]

So. I used to just use straight up 2 lane roads for EVERYTHING outside of highway use. Learned that is both inefficient and also ugly.


Now that I’m learning more about road hierarchy and layouts, do you guys typically zone on your collector roads?
I’ve been avoiding any kind of zoning on my large arterial roads. Doing residential mostly on the local alley roads, and sprinkling in some commercial. But I’m unsure if I should zone anything on collector roads, or if that’s typically where you’re supposed to put your higher density buildings. So any insight you guys have would be great!

Thanks!

[icedude94]

Don't zone anything on your collector and arterials. Traffic doesn't let vehicles merge into traffic and vehicles doing deliveries will block 2 out of 3 lanes trying to do a delivery because traffic in the 3rd lane won't let that truck or van cross.

[icedude94]

At the very least, if you are going to zone on collectors, you MUST use median dividers.

[Nik-Naks]

This guide helped me get a lot with this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwnLb2g6iKI&ab_channel=YUMBL

Basically, the fatter the road. The less roads you want going of off it.

So let's say your main fatty road only has 2 ways to exit. The next can have 4, and so on and so on.

The fat roads are to get you from point A to point B Quick... Therefore you dont want many exits.

So i use two-lane as connector roads. And then i noticed for industry, it looks a lot better if i use the alley road, since most industrial will have built in parking lots. If that doesn't work. Add parking lots..

I wouldn't use it for residential, since those guys still needs a sidewalk if they are going to the shops.

So mainly i'd say you should use two-lane as connectors, AND as main path of Local, as it helps with pedestrians also. And then parking lots. Parking lots, parking lots, parking lots. Lots of parking spots.

And then later when you can name zones.. Fine them for parking on the road.

[Gnasty Gnorc]

Originally posted by Saicko:

This guide helped me get a lot with this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwnLb2g6iKI&ab_channel=YUMBL

Basically, the fatter the road. The less roads you want going of off it.

So let's say your main fatty road only has 2 ways to exit. The next can have 4, and so on and so on.

The fat roads are to get you from point A to point B Quick... Therefore you dont want many exits.

So i use two-lane as connector roads. And then i noticed for industry, it looks a lot better if i use the alley road, since most industrial will have built in parking lots. If that doesn't work. Add parking lots..

I wouldn't use it for residential, since those guys still needs a sidewalk if they are going to the shops.

So mainly i'd say you should use two-lane as connectors, AND as main path of Local, as it helps with pedestrians also. And then parking lots. Parking lots, parking lots, parking lots. Lots of parking spots.

And then later when you can name zones.. Fine them for parking on the road.

This is actually the video I watched to get better at understanding, but it just kinda jumpcuts to a populated city. So I couldn't tell if he zoned on the collectors.

[Gnasty Gnorc]

Originally posted by icedude94:

At the very least, if you are going to zone on collectors, you MUST use median dividers.

Gotcha, thank you.

[Althazar]

A general rule of thumb I go with is that you never, EVER, zone a residential zone on a road bigger than a 4 lane road; even when we had the 4 lane roads in the one mod for CS1 that were the size of a two cell street, I always ensured the residents didn't have to live off of those roads. Right now my general strategy (since we don't have unmarked streets that are two cell sized) is just use alleyways for most of my more suburban housing that feeds into a two lane that will feed into the arterial road (often four or six lanes). Even high density residential zones I try to keep from touching the arterial roads.

About the only thing I really zone along the wider roads are commercial zones, and I often try to ensure that it's mostly going to be my big box stores, multiplexes, and strip malls that sit on those because they simply have such high volumes of traffic that need to go into them.

Of course, with mixed-use zoning now in the game, you could probably take real advantage of pedestrian pathways; because walking is a really efficient means of getting around in the game, and having most of your retail and residential buildings within reasonable walking distance will reduce the need for having cars to go everywhere.