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Five-level Stack

A Texas-style Five-level Stack with one-way, two lane frontage roads and some very mild landscaping.

Size: 170x170 cells laterally, 43 cells across the diagonal
Base cost: 188410 (yikes!)
Upkeep: 2013 p/w
Max height: 36 meters
Right-hand drive



Built with:
Precision Engineering
NoPillars
Fine Road Heights Mod

Usable without mods!

Part of my real life-sized interchange collection.

Check out the guide I created on making these kinds of real life-sized interchanges.


It's positively gigantic at 170 cells / 1360 meters laterally. Luckily though, stacks don't have that big of an overall footprint; this interchange is 43 cells / 430 meters big across the diagonal.

Because I had to keep its size in check, the height difference between levels is only 9m instead of 12m. This is of course made possible by the Fine Road Heights Mod. Even then, with an average vertical inclination of 6.25% ((9m/18c)*100 for example), this interchange is still pretty steep!

In general I feel that 9 meters is a bit more realistic for most interchanges in C:S, since clearance is in the 4-5m range anyway. However, though it works fine for traffic in-game, a reduced clearance does lead to some clipping issues with streetlights (as can be seen in screenshot no. 5) so it doesn't play that well with itself. Still, I'm not too unhappy with the clearance vs. clipping tradeoff to reduce total asset footprint.

Using Precision Engineering, both the right- and left-hand ramps are built with minimum curve radiuses of 200 meters (10c@45°*2) transitioning from outer curves of about r 300m (15c@45°). In laymen's terms: these ramps are made from two 45 degree curves of 15 by 10 cells, connecting in the middle at the shorter ends. Such 'spiral' or transition curves[en.wikipedia.org] are used in real life all the time, easing drivers into the tightest turn. I did them quick and dirty here, but hey, they look nice!

The only place where I wasn't able to connect with curves was in the dead center of the high, left-turn fly-overs. Four straight 8c / 68m segments are used here to connect these sweeping ramps and preserve their central pillars, which otherwise would have to have been deleted. As you can see in screenshot no. 4, I had to use NoPillars' overlap mode to enable some clipping of pillars into the roadways, but again this is a trade-off in reducing overall interchange size. Shallower angles on these curves would have meant a way larger asset footprint.

In traffic engineering terms, a minimum curve radius of about 200m means that the design speed of these connectors is around 65kmh / 40mph. Not ideal, in real life this would probably be a bit higher, but again: a trade-off!

The frontage roads are spaced at a distance of 7 cells / 56 meters from the freeway. Approaching the ground-level intersection they change from 2 lane one-ways to 6 lane avenues in order to facilitate faster flowing traffic. Dedicated right-turn and u-turn connectors are provided for.

Update: added connections between the freeways and frontage roads through creative use of NoPillars' overlap mode!