@RepublicanIV, thanks! I also started on a 1609 pre-Colonial map of Manhattan ("New York Rewind" by Galahad on the Workshop) so that will be quite different from real-life New York. Chehaut on the workshop has some great maps. His New York appears to be 1:1. And he also has Cape Town and Rio, which seem topographically fascinating. Not sure of the scale for those though since I have never been to either city.
@simonmd I wanted to keep unique assets down so when I get to nine tiles, I can upload this to the Workshop with minimal dependencies. But agreed, those are too iconic to leave out! Right now I am using the Oppression Office for the Capitol and the in-game opera house for the Kennedy Center.
Update
I laid down the a baseline grid first so I could have guidelines/so I wouldn't have too many gaps in buildings for gameplay purposes. The downside is that much destruction must occur when I put in the diagonal avenues.
This is what the destruction of the grid looks like in the construction of North Carolina Ave. It will meet the "Beltway" at Lincoln Park, which would actually be a great place to put an off ramp:
My name is Robert Moses. Look upon this eminent domain decree, ye mighty, and despair!
I also added Virginia Avenue, which cut through a nice chunk of Foggy Bottom. And while I was in the area, I thought, I might as well head for Rock Creek and the Potomac River.
Foggy Bottom and West End.
On the top left is the confluence of Rock Creek Parkway, the Whitehurst Freeway, K Street, and I-66. That interchange is a doozie. To the left of the elevated highway (which is I-66) is where the Watergate and Kennedy Center are. In real life, these blocks are huge:
http://goo.gl/maps/K0byd. For gameplay purposes, I added some two lane roads so more of the block could be zoneable, not just the edges of the blocks.
Shifting south towards the Mall, I couldn't get the Lincoln Memorial aligned with the shore. Then it occurred to me, Independence Avenue shifts a block south after it crosses the Tidal Basin! So, the Lincoln Memorial Circle has been shifted down as well (you'll see this in the summary picture).
The other big change is I initially had Independence and Maine Ave as two parallel six-lane avenues going in opposite directions. But they just didn't look proportional because in real life, each direction is just two or three lanes. So I decided to change Independence Ave to three lane highways in the Tidal Basin. It actually got more traffic since it allowed higher speeds. I changed northbound Maine to a two-way six lane while southbound Maine became Water Street.
Cars (or trucks and vans, anyway) are now using the Tidal Basin.
But the biggest change is Maine between the 14th Street Bridge and I-395. I previously had a simple diamond interchange. I renovated it to better reflect the actual layout:
http://goo.gl/maps/uyz1U. It's actually been a huge marked improvement to traffic flow. Guess those traffic engineers knew what they were doing, though it has gotten many a newcomer going in the wrong direction after ending up in the wrong lane!
I also destroyed the previous baseline grid I had integrated with the old 12-lane Maine Ave. I added the roundabout in front of the Mandarin Oriental. But these post-war buildings are so huge, they left gaping holes in the zoning. So I added extra roads here, like I did with the Watergate. I also condensed two two-lane one ways into 4-lane L'Enfant Plaza. I also destroyed three zoned blocks of the baseline grid to make way, fittingly, for Benjamin Banneker Circle.
Maine-395 interchange. Mandarin Oriental roundabout on the left. Benjamin Banneker Circle on the right.
That's it for now. Plan is to finish up North Carolina, then we'll see...
Summary Picture
Whitehurst/Watergate/Kennedy Center additions on the left. Maine Ave renovations by the riverbank on the bottom. North Carolina Ave construction on the top right.
EDIT: Typos
