Buses: a word of warning

[MJAnderson]

A few points I go by. Buses are to move people around small areas and metro/subway stops. Metros are to move people between districts. My bus routes are relatively small and I try to limit them to 6 stops. By making them small you reduce the down time for people who want to travel in the opposite direction (e.g your route travels clockwise but their destination is counterclockwise of the bus stop). My developed 'inner city' is pretty grid like, so I have a north and south metro line that feeds my downtown commercial and office area then continues on to my industrial. My bus lines only feed the metro stations and don't take people downtown. So far I can keep about 40% trips saved. Another tip if you have long blocks --- break them up with pedestrian paths. Cims will walk all the way around the block but a single pedestrian path will cut down travel quite a bit.

 

[novapaddy]

A few points I go by. Buses are to move people around small areas and metro/subway stops. Metros are to move people between districts. My bus routes are relatively small and I try to limit them to 6 stops. By making them small you reduce the down time for people who want to travel in the opposite direction (e.g your route travels clockwise but their destination is counterclockwise of the bus stop). My developed 'inner city' is pretty grid like, so I have a north and south metro line that feeds my downtown commercial and office area then continues on to my industrial. My bus lines only feed the metro stations and don't take people downtown. So far I can keep about 40% trips saved. Another tip if you have long blocks --- break them up with pedestrian paths. Cims will walk all the way around the block but a single pedestrian path will cut down travel quite a bit.

Very timely post, thank you!
I have industrial areas crying out for workers and housing estates with unemployed. I made the mistake of extending my bus routes to gather up the unemployed and bus the to the industrial areas. I then started to link road across-town to try to encourage more movement into the industrial areas.... VERY QUICKLY my smoothly running city became a disaster area of choking traffic and I ended up losing 800+ citizens a turn.... !!

I did have metro stations linking districts and these are always busy. But I'm amazed how quickly things can go from smooth running to disaster...

 

[Tomnobles]

Another tip if you have long blocks --- break them up with pedestrian paths. Cims will walk all the way around the block but a single pedestrian path will cut down travel quite a bit.

Could you show a screenshot of this. I've tried to use pedestrian paths but, apparently I don't understand them.

 

[barrygreybeard]

Pedestrian paths are quite easy when you get the hang of them, just put yourself in the position of a pedestrian and you can figure out where they want to go ...

There's a bus-stop at the top middle of the picture by the green buses so to allow residents to the left of the railway line to walk to that bus-stop I linked all the cul-de-sacs by a path parallel to the railway on the left side, built a pedestrian walkway over the line and connected it to the roads on the right of the railway line with 2 paths. When you get the hang of it it's great fun, and just watch your cims scuttling over the foot bridge to and from work, school or play.

 

[Pkay]

I use the Traffic++ Mod (zonable pedestian paths) which are all light grey
in my city but I also use the built in paths a lot (most of them brown in my city).
I really love to see how much more alive the city looks with lots of pedestians walking around everywhere.

A few more examples of what MJAnderson meant with breaking down long blocks (you can spot the brown gravel paths) :

Again - Light grey roads are zonable pedestrian only (with the exception for service and delivery. Really nice to create trafficless residential/commercial) and brown gravel paths
are the ingame paths you can use:

I know there's a crossing there but only because I connected it to a zonable pedestian road in the bottom mid to left. Before that, all those ppl using the metro station were
using the elevated pedestrian path like the one barrygreybeard showed with the rail-crossing:

 

[Tomnobles]

Thanks a lot barrygreybeard & Pkay, Makes sense now. Nice looking cities, by the way, both.

 

[barrygreybeard]

Nice shot of down-town Pkay, I noticed the Traffic++ mod maybe should try it now my city is growing. What's the blue/gold building on the right of your final picture?

 

[Tossi]

What's the blue/gold building on the right of your final picture?

I think you mean the lvl 3 office building.​

 

[barrygreybeard]

It's a stock building then? I have yet to spawn one in any of my cities then.. one day I will, I am sure

 

[Tomnobles]

I think I got it now. Behind the high-school across two streets to the bus stop. Now there must be two hundred Cims waiting for a 30 passenger bus. (LOL)

 

[Pkay]

Thanks guys. It's still my first city and I would love to play more than my time allows me.

I can't find the building in my asset manager so I guess it's the level 3 stock office building, as Tossi said.

I don't know if you prefer playing the game as it is or if you're open to mods but there are also mods that raise the possible passengers in your public transport.