Question about Pedestrian Paths/Request for Information;

[Anderson Doe]

Hello fellow mayors; so I have heard many people extol the virtues of pedestrian paths and liken them to "free public transport." Apparently they are very popular. I still have a few uncertainties, however. Will these greatly detract from my mass transport revenue? I have a limited experience, typically I only draw a path from my more distant residential to the nearest transit stop, or to bridge a road so that my pedestrians stop impeding traffic at a particularly busy intersection of roads. I would like to become a pro at incorporating pedestrian paths into my design. Information directly related to pedestrian paths is appreciated, and thank you!

 

[Glitcher]

Welcome to the forums. From your post, I'd be surprised if you're earning enough mass transit revenue to turn a profit. Mass transit should be thought of as an expense to reduce traffic, and if you can get more people to walk instead, so much the better. For my part, I prefer to draw pedestrian paths where sidewalks are unavailable, such as cutting through a long block or crossing a highway. If a destination is within easy reach of a road then citizens can just walk along it, otherwise build a pedestrian path as a quick 'shortcut' between points A and B.

From experience, I recommend you focus more on bike paths instead. Bikes are for longer trips and you can encourage an amazing number of citizens to forgo cars and adopt cycling if you have a network of bike paths that connect your city. Use the 'encourage biking' policy works wonders too. See my city as an example:

 

[red1]

Under what tab are pedestrian paths if you have parklife?

 

[Glitcher]

Under what tab are pedestrian paths if you have parklife?

Landscaping and Disasters===>>>Paths

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

 

[Cynwraeth]

I like to think of pedestrian paths as a road network within a road network. When you plan a neighborhood don't just consider the roads but also the pedestrians. Every park, bus stop, train station, and so on should be accessible by foot in a relatively short walk. They don't take up much space and if you plan your grids (or whatever shapes you like) to be slightly larger than normal there's lots of room between buildings to build paths. I like to surround my paths with trees so the whole city looks like a big park.

 

[geckoman1011]

Ive started incorporating paths into my cities. I place most of them underground with my entrances next to busy intersections, schools, and parks.

 

[Delaradra]

While observing traffic issues at several intersections recently, I found the issue was the delay caused by pedestrians crossing the street. As a test I created a large network of paths that let pedestrians go anywhere never needing to ever cross the street (both tunnels and overpasses), and it pretty much solved all my traffic issues. Note: Using Traffic Manager mod and disallowed pedestrians from crossing on roads after I built the walkways.