It's Rush Hour in SimCity

[General Ludd]

I've gotten a parking garage to work. I think the trick is knowing where to place them. Bus stops and other frequent transit stops don't really need them. Try puting them around choke-points in your transit system, like a ferry port. The parking garage I have people stoping in is located beside 2 of 3 ways off the island it's built on - a ferry and subway station. (the other way is a very conjested bridge)

Speaking of which... I wonder how it would effect my sytem if I made the ferry port take passengers only - if there are enough bus stops and subway stations spread out on the other side, it could clear up alot of traffic... or would everyone just crowd onto the already stressed bridge? I'm sure that would cause the parking garage to be used alot more, atleast.

[Jonny]

I was just about to post and say that I got a parking garage to work also.

It seems that the 1-tile in between rule does make a difference. (And easy access to the garage does too, of course.) It's really helpful in geting your suburban Sims to use mass transit more often.

Below is a picture of what I call a "mass transit hub." There are about 600 people using the garage, and 1000 people using the subway station.

[General Ludd]

Oh, and the oneway roads work wonders. The other advantage of them that I hadn't thought of is that they allow twice the amount of traffic to go in one direction (since the whole road is devoted to it).

The ferry port I mentioned is, in retrospect, pretty badly placed in regards to the roads. It has three roads leading to it all meating at a point infront of it - I thought it looked nice, but it led to some pretty terrible trafic problems at that intersection.

This is what it looked like before I put in a couple oneway roads in...

[General Ludd]

And this is what it looks like after puting two one way roads in (the middle one going in, and the left one going out). Granted, it pushed some heavy traffic into the road connecting the two, but it cleared up the really bad stuff - and I'm sure a few more one way roads can clean up the area even more.

[General Ludd]

And another interesting thign to consider with the oneway roads is that you could use it to make a difference between morning and evening commutes. I haven't gotten to a point where I really need to consider this, but it would make an interesting experiment...

(EDIT: And is the '1-tile in between rule' confirmed?)

[Datajack Franit]

You shouldn't place parkings in residential areas in the real world, you know

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Datajack Franit
You shouldn't place parkings in residential areas in the real world, you know

This along with yout comment about living next to highways leads me to believe you've never been to north america, or any of it's major cities, have you?

(Granted, it is a tad out of place in low density zoning)

[Jonny]

About the 1-tile in between rule, I don't know for sure if it is confirmed, but it sure seems to make a difference in transit ridership numbers. Besides, it makes sense, since the Sims have to walk from the garage to the station, or whatever they're transfering to/from, and they can only walk on the roads/streets.

EDIT: And on the subject of one way roads, I really haven't experimented with them much as of yet.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Jonny
About the 1-tile in between rule, I don't know for sure if it is confirmed, but it sure seems to make a difference in transit ridership numbers. Besides, it makes sense, since the Sims have to walk from the garage to the station, or whatever they're transfering to/from, and they can only walk on the roads/streets.

I know for certain that there doesn't have to be a road seperating them. (edit: actually, after thinking about it, I'm not that certain after all) All the stations have to be connected to the street, obviously, and if they don't walk to a building that's right next to another station, that's a pretty big bug... I'll have to take a closer look next time I play.

[Datajack Franit]

This along with yout comment about living next to highways leads me to believe you've never been to north america, or any of it's major cities, have you?

Hooray old Europe!

[Jonny]

Oh, and another question. Does anyone know if people will commute through a city on their way to a job (that is, there is a city between the city in which they live and the one in which they work), or will they only commute to cities directly connected to their home city?

[Datajack Franit]

Of course, they can. But don't expect them to do that with subways and bus lines- almost useless, in the regional aspect

Highways in cities above 100,000 are a MUST, if you're playing on the large central map, you should have at least 2 connections for every direction, plus 4 subway lines (will work only in joined regions) LOTS of rails and roads

[alva]

or will they only commute to cities directly connected to their home city?

They will, but there is a bug ATM.
IE times are not added up, so in fact a sim travelling through 3 cities can get a lower commute then one walking to a job around the corner.

[General Ludd]

There's two other things in the expansion that I don't remember being mentioned in this thread, a new building graphics style - "euro-contemporary" (along with an option to change building styles every five years, or use a mixture of certain ones) and toll booths.

Toll booths are amazingly effective, just a few of them placed around major roadways can pay for your entire transit system, and then some. In one of my cities, I have all the residential areas on an island off the main land, with only two bridges connecting it. I put a toll booth at each bridge, and make more money out of those two toll booths then my entire transit system costs each month.

Their only downside is that they slowdown traffic and cause conjestion (which, of course, makes them difficult to put along the major road ways). But I don't care if my sims have to sit in traffic for an hour, if it makes that much money.

[Jonny]

Originally posted by Osweld
Toll booths are amazingly effective, just a few of them placed around major roadways can pay for your entire transit system, and then some. In one of my cities, I have all the residential areas on an island off the main land, with only two bridges connecting it. I put a toll booth at each bridge, and make more money out of those two toll booths then my entire transit system costs each month.

Their only downside is that they slowdown traffic and cause conjestion (which, of course, makes them difficult to put along the major road ways). But I don't care if my sims have to sit in traffic for an hour, if it makes that much money.

Yea, toll booths can make a killing if you put them at choke points like in your situation, where the sims are forced to use the toll booth road.

If only they didn't have such a limited capacity... After all, how many times have you seen a highway with a toll booth having only 3 lanes? Usually, along major highways, there are sprawling toll plazas with 10 lanes or more.