Cities without highways

[TimW]

What happens in C:S when you build a city without highways? What are the traffic patterns like?

(This does not apply to highways already present on the pre-built maps)

 

[MarkJohnson]

Hmm, they use the highways? Not sure what you're after?

 

[EthanZak]

I've tried it a few times on different maps, but always ended up building highways. I found I could get away with it until around 10-15k population, once the amount of industrial/commercial traffic exceeds the limited road capacity you're screwed though. Also, your first interchange from an off-map connection turns into a bad day at Picadilly Circus If you spread your city out a lot you could probably get away with it for longer.

 

[ristosal]

Apart from building an additional interchange for your industrial zone, you can get away with not building any highways for quite a while, at least on some maps. I managed that up to something like 30k population.

 

[medopu]

Apart from building an additional interchange for your industrial zone, you can get away with not building any highways for quite a while, at least on some maps. I managed that up to something like 30k population.

this is so ridiculous considering the fact that most (99%) of <30k towns in real life don't even have highways. Even 4-way roads are more like an exceptiion than the rule.

So frustrating, because I actually want to construct highways.... for actual cities, not for 20k townsvilles.

 

[metacritical]

this is so ridiculous considering the fact that most (99%) of <30k towns in real life don't even have highways. Even 4-way roads are more like an exceptiion than the rule.

So frustrating, because I actually want to construct highways.... for actual cities, not for 20k townsvilles.

the milestones for the game label a city of 16,000 as a big city and a population of 30,000 as "capital city". that should give you more perspective rather than looking at population size alone. besides it's a game, not real life, or a simulator of real life.

 

[medopu]

the milestones for the game label a city of 16,000 as a big city and a population of 30,000 as "capital city". that should give you more perspective rather than looking at population size alone. besides it's a game, not real life, or a simulator of real life.

Well yes... the "perspective" argument. That's how Simcity2013 justified one-tile city sizes. I know what you're trying to say but I'm not asking for a real-life simulator. I just want to build a 50k town, that doesn't require elaborate highway ring-roads and complex subway networks to control the traffic because it breaks the immersion completely. Why is that immediately disregarded as a real-life simulator?

Currently, I feel like all my towns are finnished at 50.000 population, because I have everything from highways with multiple intersections, airports, subways, metro and harbors... If I want them, i build them and that's it. there's nothing significant you can do in this game at population stages of 100k-200k that you cannot accomplish much much earlier. For me personally (and I know that's not necessarily true for others), it's quite a worthless endeavor to keep playing in these later stages as a result.

I know you all play differently and I respect your opinions, I just wrote down my observations. Take care.

 

[MarkJohnson]

It sounds like you are building too fast. You have to give your city time to grow and mature. As building gain levels, they evict the current residents and call in more off-map citizens, and they do this over and over. So, you'll have a lot of traffic early on. Once you have maxed your building's levels. Then traffic will subside and be normal. but during grow stage, you get a lot of traffic. Try creating temporary on/off ramps along the highway to get cims in and out of your city easier, then remove them after your area matures.

As for realism. How many cities have you seen grow from zero 15k in a few short years? They grow gradually over time. Not all at once. You are just getting an artificial effect right now, as this doesn't happen in real life. To prevent this, I always play at x3 sxpeeds so building will level up faster and trafficx subsides quicker, while I build somewhat slow and steady.

Lastly, you'll need to balance out your city as it grows as well. If you have too many or too few workers (residents), then you will export/import workers, causing more issues. Same with industry, if you create excessive or too few goods, then you get goods being imported/exported and generating excessive traffic. Also, if you build your RCI zones too far away, then you get excess traffic from everyone making long trips everywhere. i.e. to work, shopping, delivering goods, importing goods because goods are too far away so they import them. Delivery distances are very short. less than 1km.

 

[medopu]

It sounds like you are building too fast. You have to give your city time to grow and mature.

This might help some people who build too fast, but my little town is more than 80 years old, as I also like to play at max speed. I pause only when reconstructing a road network so that I don't confuse the traffic AI too much.

The challenge I have is to use as little highways as is realistically possible. Beside realism concern I voiced earlier, excessive use of highways makes my cities look uglier, divided and in-organic. I use freight stations for industry in order to redirect some industry traffic onto trains. For the town core, I have to rely on one-way roads and bus lines, since using subways feels like cheating for such small-scale towns. I hope this helps to anyone trying to play without highways.

 

[dj97]

This might help some people who build too fast, but my little town is more than 80 years old, as I also like to play at max speed. I pause only when reconstructing a road network so that I don't confuse the traffic AI too much.

The challenge I have is to use as little highways as is realistically possible. Beside realism concern I voiced earlier, excessive use of highways makes my cities look uglier, divided and in-organic. I use freight stations for industry in order to redirect some industry traffic onto trains. For the town core, I have to rely on one-way roads and bus lines, since using subways feels like cheating for such small-scale towns. I hope this helps to anyone trying to play without highways.

I blame the scaling of the population models. Single-family houses will usually have 3-4 families living in them, making physically small towns have the same problems as larger towns.

 

[MotownCountry]

i build a couple blocks at a time....then i lose track of 'time' by sitting and watching different areas.....LOL so nope, i don't build too fast....