Hey everyone! With a couple more years of experience both with the game and making videos, I've updated my tips! Check them out here - th-cam.com/video/1syUxBR60WE/w-d-xo.html
My traffic actually went from 64% to 93% by implementing these suggestions. Especially the bike lanes and pedestrian paths had major impact on both traffic and noise pollution. Thanks a lot!
I started making a lot of pedestrian path bridges over streets, especially over the 4 and 6 lane streets, and even over parts where the highway would sit between different neighbourhoods. It significantly reduced my traffic problems as pedestrians no longer had to cross the road. This especially helped around public transport hubs, because it meant that cars and busses no longer had to wait when a metro or bus just unloaded a lot of people in one location. Made everything a lot smoother and also helped with getting people to go from one form of public transport to the next. I tried pedestrian tunnels, but people didn't seem to like those as much as the high paths.
Whilst listening to this guy for the last 4 minutes and 14 seconds of my life. I’ve come to the realization, that the city planers where I live absolutely should not be planing cities😭😭😂
well. i may not speak eldritch, like my friend (who deleted its comment). but as far as i've learn, modern north america (if you live there) is built to be able to fit as many cars as possible on the highway while also making it little to no effort to help pedestrian and bikes. in a nutshell, when cars became more affordable to the average citizen, the city planners just said "i don't care what the %$&= we end up buldozing, we need more roads to get more cars!" and so they buldozed everything that could get in the way of cars on most major cities on the whole country (sidewalks. bike lanes, houses, those few stores that could have become classic historical stores nowadays, etc).
Just wanted to pop back in here and say that those two-lane roads WITH bicycle lanes changed my life. I'd tried everything I could think of to encourage my citizens to use bikes, but didn't know about the roads with the bike lanes built in and had wondered what the point of the regular roads was (they have parking spaces, but businesses and large apartment complexes usually have those on their own and they don't clutter into the street). My traffic in my new small city has usually been hovering around 94% now. Thank you again!
Watching this made me realize how badly I’ve messed up the traffic on my first city. I have a massive downtown core with zero road hierarchy, arbitrary road layouts with too many intersections, and in some places, two-lane roads serving as major arteries. The result is massive supply shortages all over the city that I can’t seem to fix no matter how many freight connections I make. It’s a shame, because the city is pretty cool aside from that. I’m definitely going to take all this into account when I build my next city.
I love knowing "why" things work. People who have problems that seem to arise because of the tips might want to look beyond the current moment to see what else might be wrong before automatically blaming the current change alone. This happened to me when I added bike Lanes, etc. At first, my traffic increased. Then, I saw this video and realized I was concentrating my industrial all together AND far away from the highway. Since I've changed that, traffic is super slick. Can 74 year olds get degrees in Urban Planning? 🤔
There is always a reason - both in the game and in reality - that issues arise. I love a curious mind that looks into why things are the way they are. And a 74 year old could absolutely get a degree in planning! Often times, younger folks have a difficult time understanding why things are the way they are and have to spend a long time "unpeeling the onion," so to speak. I spend a ton of time working with those that have a better understanding of where we got today. I think, in general, society would be better off if we did that more often!
@@CityPlannerPlays really? I'd expect younger people to understand the problems we now face way better. The older generations grew up as we were transitioning into the car-centered hell we now live in, and from my experience they have difficulties imagining better ways to structure communities
@@CarlNiemi I believe you are 180 degrees off course there. The thing you grew up with is normal, old people in general are very good to point out what has gotten worse, things that younger people don't see as problems because they simply do not have the experience to know any better. We need everyone, old and young, to build a better future by learning from old mistakes and not repeat them.
@@CarlNiemi Exactly what you said, old people remember I time before car dependence while younger people usually don't realize why that's a problem because that's all they've ever experienced
My traffic has never been too bad (under 70%) but these tips will surely keep it above 90% Road hierarchy has never been my strong suit, I depend too much on roundabouts and lane control
you sould be aware of lane mathematics as well. its something he doesnt mention that does help tremendously, especially on highways. what i meanby that is lets say you have a 4 lane highway. eventually traffic is gonna need to get off. however many lanes you put in your off ramp, you should subtract from the number of lanes on your main highway. so if you have 2 lanes of traffic leaving the highway on a ramp, you highway needs to also become 2 lanes. once the highway rejoin with the on-ramp, if the on-ramp is two lanes, the highway once again becomes 4 lanes. this creates a situation where nobody needs to ever stop or get out of each other's way because there is immediately a clear lane for them to get into.
@@companyoflosers Happens in real life as well, though there are two routes to go depending on how heavily used a junction is liable to be. The route you've mentioned of removing lanes between where a junction splits lanes out for an off ramp and where it rejoins them from the on ramp or for 1-2 sections of road before and after the junction you can bump the highway/motorway by the amount of lanes going off/coming on. Both cases allow dedicated lanes for the on/off flow and give time to merge more smoothly keeping traffic up. It can be helpful presuming you've got Traffic Manager to lock or limit lane switching as well to smooth things out. Another route to doing lane math is the asymetric roads. Like having the dedicated lanes on highways/arteries, these allow traffic to spread just a bit coming up to a junction and are particularly useful splitting off traffic that's going to wind up sitting on their rears for ages, meaning mostly those trying to turn across the oncoming traffic or allow smoother turns for those wanting an immediate exit at a roundabout or where there's a road off a collector that you want to allow people to get past without too much issue from those wanting to turn if it's on the outside.
i don't think all the DLC's are very necessary. I just got the natural disasters and it's pretty good but considering that the disasters were included in the main game in the Sim City games, i feel kind of ripped off. Unfortunately they removed a lot of stuff from the main game just to sell it as a DLC. Other than that it's a fantastic game
@@Geckotr if you are looking for another dlc. I would reccomend you mass transit because you have more roads, hubs and more diverse transport such as blimps, monorails,ferries.
What I learnt as well is to use pedestrian tunnels or foot bridges instead of crossings for major roads. As cars would always stop for a unlimited amount of people crossing the road.
@@s.h.8153 Use page up and page down when you have the pedestrian path selected to either raise or lower the elevation. Just the same way you can do for all roads :)
I've been a fan of this game since 2016 and I've come across many CS channels on TH-cam, but I think this is by far my favorite. He doesn't just show what he's built and leave it at the chef's secret sauce or the magician's trick, he really explains how cities work, why things should be done certain ways, etc. I love hearing the why behind this stuff, and this kind of advice has helped my city building more than just seeing a cool city that's already done and trying to emulate it; this has allowed me to organically create well functioning and natural looking cities more often. I appreciate this content
I can agree with that last one about making cities less car dependant, we need to do that for our real life cities as well. My car broke down yesterday and I've basically been able to do literally nothing but stay home while waiting for the mechanic to work through a busy schedule.
Here in the Phoenix Arizona metro area, it's 110 degrees or above on summer days, so walking and biking are out of the question, as the temperatures combined with the high UV concentration make these activities not only unpleasant, but actually dangerous.
It's funny how different this is from where i live In the town i live in you can't even really go to the main area with all the shops without getting out your car and walking. The whole shopping area is a no car zone, and there aren't many places to park. Most people live really close to the town anyway, so it's just more efficient to walk to town, cars here are more used for long distance, going to other places. Oh and btw i live in Switzerland
@@volkova6209 yeah many parts of Europe are so much better than our system here. We usually get in our cars to drive to the other side of the road, if the road happens to be a major one with lots of traffic, just because the way they're designed makes it so unsafe for pedestrians that walking in some places almost suicide
@L I have a bike. This was almost exactly a year ago today, where here in Phoenix the temperature outside was 110-115 degrees Fahrenheit, or ~45 degree Celsius. Going outside and doing a physical activity like riding a bike is actually dangerous and potentially even deadly in those temperatures. We have to have helicopter rescues off of our trails in this area for people that pass out from the heat
I tend to place public services (e.g. disaster response, recycling/waste centres, helicopter depots etc) on isolated highway-connected islands with dedicated junctions, off and onramps and roundabouts to both minimise the number of vehicles on the main city roads and maximise highway use.
I took all the tricks Amsterdam does for traffic calming and it actually works, bike highways, transit routing and pedestrian access make everything seem complicated but are just roads without cars. Also burn all the traffic lights and install a roundabout in appropriate areas.
I do consider myself as a smart guy. I've never had any problems with this type of games. Exept Cities. I watch a lot on youtube and i always think "why can't i do this?". Your 10 min video solved 5 years of missery. 10 MINUTES! If your ever going to sweden, hmu and i'll buy you one or six beers!
Implementing these tips increased my traffic by 46 percent to 92 percent. Bike lanes and pedestrian routes, in particular, have a significant influence on traffic and noise pollution. Thank you very much!
6:30 I like to imagine all those cars in the roundabout going, "Where's the road? Google Maps says we're supposed to turn here! There's no road! I can see the factory!"
Dude I just stopped the time to see if there were any comments marking it. Like he went into the shadow realm. I'm sure he just had to burp or had something in his throat.:)
I started playing again after YEARS, still always making the same mistakes. Just putting stuff down trying to figure it out. These videos are so greatly appreciated and helpful!! ❤
It's kind of interesting to see the difference between you and Biffa. I've spent far more hours watching Biffa than I have playing the game. I'm on my 5th and hoping that this one will be able to keep going. Traffic typically kills me eventually. Biffa's solutions are typically roundabouts and lane management...oh, and of course public transport. Adding your stuff in I think is gonna help me a lot. Thank you. Also, if you haven't seen Biffa's stuff, I'd recommend watching an episode or two, he's just plain fun to watch. Again, thanks for posting this.
I find the game has a major flaw which has never been addressed or fixed; that being the way traffic lights work at cross roads, whether that be a small two lane residential road or a major six lane main road. The traffic lights will allow traffic to proceed from opposite directions at the same time, which means you end up with vehicles fighting for space right in the middle of the junction. If the lights were timed correctly you'd only have straight-on traffic moving at one time and turning traffic at another, so vehicles never cross each other's path. There's also the lack of dedicated turning lanes; Vehicles turning away from the junction should have a small single lane connecting them from the road they're on to the one they want to be on without the need to stop. The game actually tackles this same method with its built-in clover leaf highway intersection, so I honestly don't see why it's never been implemented in to small roads. Until it is, and the traffic light timing is altered, I don't think the game will ever have perfect traffic.
The traffic lights in this game work in a similar way to how most of the traffic lights on two lane roads in the UK work I can even think of a few cross roads near where i live (UK, but not saying exactly where in the UK) where the traffic lights aren’t able to control when vehicles can turn right (the UK drives on the left) There is also a sort of cross roads where i live, where one of the directions is a one way road exiting the junction, so in terms of the traffic lights, it is essentially a T junction If you were to approach from the left side of the T, there are separate lanes for going straight ahead, or turning right Approach from the bottom of the T, there are separate lanes for turning left and turning right However, approach from the right side of the T, and there is only one lane, so if you wanted to turn down the one way road, then its a case of keep your fingers crossed for a gap in the traffic heading the other way Approaching from the left side of the T it isn’t much better, as although there is a separate lane for turning right, the traffic lights generally work the same as the cross roads i previously mentioned, however, there is a sensor in the road in the middle of the junction, which is used to detect when there are vehicles wanting to turn right, and so, how it is supposed to work, is if you haven’t been able to complete the turn, the traffic lights for traffic approaching in the other direction turn red early, and then a green filter arrow comes on The only traffic light junction which actually controls when cars can turn is the one outside the supermarket It’s a T junction, approaching from the left side of the T, there are 2 lanes, straight ahead, and right turn, there are separate traffic lights for each lane, the red and amber lights are not arrows, but the straight ahead lights have a green up pointing arrow, the right turn lights have a green right pointing arrow Approaching from the bottom of the T, 2 lanes, left turn, and right turn, separate traffic lights for each lane, the red and amber lights are not arrows, the left turn lights have a green left pointing arrow, and the right turn lights have a green right pointing arrow Approaching from the right of the T, there is only one lane, and there are no arrows at all
I have usually more problems with cargo train stations and traffic. I don't know if I should put cargo station in every industrial area or not and how to connect them...
The basic principles of the tip you gave about filtering traffic (arterial > collector > local) can also be applied to public transportation networks too. Trains are basically your long distance, high speed/high capacity 'arterial', Metro or Monorail are your 'collectors' and Buses are for 'local'. Ideally you want at least one large train loop going around your city, with passengers from trains filtered onto Metro/Monorail routes that circle around districts, then use buses for short distance pickups around local neighbourhoods to get people to and from the metro or monorail station. What you *don't* want is super long bus routes that snake all across the city with 50+ buses on the line, and you want to try and avoid having too many bus routes converging in the same place. (And DEFINITELY DON'T have multiple bus routes stopping along main arterial roads!!! You'll clog up your city real fast if you have 50-100 buses on a main artery all the time!) Having multiple bus routes coming into the same place *can* be done, but it involves some fairly advanced level planning to build a complex transport hub, and I wouldn't recommend it for beginners lol.
@@scythal there’s some wiggle room on this. Most lines of the Paris Metro function as local transit, with 3 stops every mile. Then look at Line 15 of the Paris Metro or the express services on the NYC Subway: they have a higher average speed due to less frequent stops so can serve more regional trips.
Aggressive? What are you two, babies? I simply asked him a question after expressing surprise that someone would go through the trouble of pointing that out on City Planners video? I think a better question at the present for you two, what are you trying to say about me? Why ask why I'm 'aggressive' when it was a clear cut and simple question. If you don't have a good answer, the go away lol.
I see often videos about something new in skylines and every time want to play it again, but then remember how much I hated huge traffic jams I always ended up with quickly. Now I see I did opposite on all 5 tips so this time I actually had to start playing again. Thanks 😄
Someone mentioned that you should have a buffer between industrial and residential and it makes sense. I love your videos as it gives insight on how to make the game more fun
I suggest getting familiar with the game, use the tips from this video and more. Then after a while, download mods! Make the game 10x better, and you wont even want to play without them after you try. It works even if you got the game on Epic Games, just takes longer time to install the mods
I've been figuring this traffic thing out and watching your videos and other people's traffic suggestions and you're the first person to break down a concept clearly (arterials, collectors, etc), thank you.
I saw this video for the first time ages ago but the way you conceptualise road hierarchy into their uses is so helpful I keep referring back here all the time to it.
I just started up C:S again after having dabbled with it over the years. I have a stack of DLC at the moment to get my teeth into. But I’ve really enjoyed your videos as they have helped me to understand planning and road building. A new subscriber!
Thank you! Trial and error is definitely important, too. In a future video, I'm going to load up some of my old cities from 2015 and see how they hold up. Lots of trial and error in those cities...
IIRC, the game automatically sets up traffic lights on junctions. Do away with those, just implement road hierarchy properly (who gives way) and you will notice much better traffic, without the needs to use mods for the most part.
I'm a Sim City OG (SNES)... never got into any other city builder game since then though, always just reverted back to my nostalgic SNES fav... but i recently got Cities Skylines AND CANNOT WAIT TO BUILD !!! Love the fact that you're an actual pro city planner playing this game!!! So f'n cool... You sir, will be getting alooooooottt of watch hours from me lol
In my opinion using Arterial Roads is good for zoning commercial, industries, and police/fire/medical/schools. It will make traffic move faster especially for trucks.
It can work, but I'd avoid industries in particular. Arterials are meant to prioritize mobility, not access. Industries, in particular, require a great deal of access and should be located on local roads. Creating a frontage road can be a way to accomplish the best of both worlds in that instance.
New Cities Skylines player here. I just want to say that in regards to road hierarchy, the game explicitly says low, medium, high, highway in the description. I think most people miss that because they don't read the descriptions on what road they are building. Also I found that even if a residential area is in between the highway and industrial area, you can just make a highway that connects the two without having any connections to the residential. This is feasible by placing that highway underground. Just make sure you plan on how you place it, so as not to impede on future metro/train routes. It also has the added benefit of lowering overall traffic within the city. Just make sure that your connection to the highway can handle all that traffic.
Honestly the road design and management tips are some of the best you could possibly give. Many people wouldn’t have a clue how to design an efficient road system. Everyone thinks they could make a better city and this game really shows that when you have hundreds of KM of city blocks and hundreds of thousands of people. The problems never end. You’ve always got to adapt. A city is a constantly evolving life form. and i have made the mistake of connecting streets to highways and arterial roads on almost all my maps. And i wonder why my traffic ends up at 65% Thank you good sir for educating me. being a government offical
Well, this will come handy. I didn't plan my first city's roads at all and it caused a super bad rush hour that lasted for 24/7. What I ended up is doing is I cleared the badly designed area with a meteor strike and remade the whole thing. Now it's great and everybody is happy.
I've been watching your videos for the las week, bought the game, but i think that i have spent more time watching the videos that actually playing. My wife is just kinda puzzled that every time i am in youtube i am watching this. Just long way of saying, fantastic work! Best regards.
Thinking of getting back to this game and really apperciate these tips! Defintely found my number one issue before was having a highway connection mixed with residents and industrial imports/exports haha
I looked at your subscriber count after watching the video, and I’m really surprised you don’t have more! I’m sure interest in your channel will explode when they release the sequel (whenever that might be) if you keep up the same great video quality!
Hmm. I have a bit of a problem with expanding my industrial zones and not expanding road types (bike lanes, tramways etc). I'll definitely have to take these tips on board next time I play
So my understanding of the roads is basically simplified as Arterial = Freeway, Collector = Highway, Local = Streets. Or in my head thats how I'm looking at it for my own understanding when doing the roads. Thanks!
Explaining road hierarchy I like to liken them to blood vessels. If you connect a capillary to the aorta, it's gonna burst because it's not supposed to withstand that volume and throughput.
Nicely done. Looking forward to more. Would love to hear more about the complement of your profesh experience and how that is replicated and made realistic in the game. Also interested in how Real world planning is applied in this game to help me understand the city that i live in!
@@CityPlannerPlays I watched the roadway hieracrchy one super cool. Need to think about it a little. Not on;y in the game but in my observances of real life. Looking forward to zoning. I live in a port city. Trying to reproduce it was super instructive. But a little more zoning knowledge would be great.
@@konakatranya5531 That's one of the next topics I want to tackle. I specifically want to discuss how limited the in-game zoning in and how you can fix it with districts.
One of the things I have taught myself just now is to work backwards. So many times on the internet, more often than not, people will give easy answers to hard problems: start a new game or give up. You're too much in the hole, so just destroy everything. The one thing about me is that if I see a problem, I want it solved, so I can have fun. My little town of less than 7000 people has reached an income of: - $4, 300,000. That's right negative. However, I've been able to slowly get positive using my problem solving of working backwards How to work backwards: 1.) Note garbage production output units and garbage processing. If production is 170,000 units and but processing is only 40,000 units, your city cannot pick up the trash. If you have a negative income, you simply cannot just purchase an incinerator. You must work backwards 2 ) in working backwards, start de-zoning areas slowly until your garbage processing reaches the yellow or at least right at the end of the red area. If processing is 90,000 units but production output equals 118,000. That's a little more manageable 3.) In regards to trash, slide the night trash all the way to the left. The day trash should be near 100% when making negative income. Yes, it will become more negative. However... 4.) as you continue to get deeper into debt, lower the day trash budget by a few percentages as well as continue to dezone more areas slowly. 5.) When de-zoning don't bulldoze roads until trash processing power is in yellow. 6.) Gradually you will begin to notice your income is not going down -$2500, but maybe -$800. This is progress. 7.) Now make sure all roads are accessible for the trash trucks and think if there is a bit of infrastructure you can destroy without a.) Blocking access to a road with houses b.) Destroying too much. You need to have lots of areas you can rezone later as you slowly make less negative income, like -$50. If you can destroy a bridge but cars can take another bridge to get to that same area, then maybe that bridge can be bulldozed. But again, be mindful. It's better to do a whole lot of dezoning as opposed to bulldozing roads. If you destroy a road that block access to an area you want to later rezone, destroying that road may block your chances of working backwards. 8.) Pay attention to income and expenses. If trash is first the most part picked up, 9.) Wait it out. Even though city Skylines may say I want more residential, don't give the city much. Maybe plant a few high density buildings. Again, you want to be able to pick up most of the trash. You be tempted to say "the green bar is all the way up, I'll plant 50 houses." Don't do that. But you may say "But the game is begging me too!" And will say "The game probably doesn't account for your negative s million income and barely manageable trash. So don't plant 50 houses just because the game wants a high demand. Plant 3 or 4 houses or 2 high end residential structures. 10.,) Wait it out more. Now when you dezoned, you might have lost your electricity connection next to a powerline. That's why even if you want to make money, don't bulldoze powerlines. You might have destroyed your chance of working backwards. So don't do it. When rezoning, the first structure rezoned should be next to a poweline. 11.) As your numbers fluctuate and as you slowly wait it out, you may get to a point where you start earning more money. Even though I was at negative 4.3 million, I managed to get it in a positive direction to negative 3.8 million. I said alot, so it may seem overwhelming. Let me give you a few bullet points. -- manage your trash. Don't built too much of a city to the point you cannot pickup trash -- use day abs night incomes to your advantage -- a point, I dud not share: turning off a building might work to your advantage. It may or mat not -- dezone smartly: don't destroy roads and powerlines unless you know for certain you have enough to rezone. Again, you can destroy, but I told you not to destroy powerlines since you might regret it later and have a non-savable city and may have to resort to cheat mods. Using a mod just provides you with an easy way out. Dint do it. See if you can do it without mods by working backwards. The game of life doesn't use mods. And you'll feel much. Are accomplished if you went from negative millions into positive money. -- Wait it out, rezone as slow as a turtle 🐢. Don't get over cocky just because you see a high demand. --I did not share this. If you're in the hole, don't turn on policies. --The reason why a city may nit be salvageable is if you destroy sources of water and power, mainly power. But you don't go around destroying pipes because no water is basically saying you don't want a city to exist. If you destroy your pipes out of frustration, you CANNOT work backwards unless you only destroyed a section or 2. So again, dont do it. You'll hate yourself later.
I always crowed up my industrial zones and put all my landfills right next to each other, also pretty much ignored bikes. I'll change these things in a new city and see how my traffic fairs.
These sound like great tips, I'll be implementing them in my city! (I always thought that having "highway rings" around the city would improve traffic, turned out not many used it :P )
I'm already using busses and metros to curtail traffic, but definitely didn't think of not placing residential between my industry and exit, also haven't looked into bike lanes. I'll have to see what I have in that area to play around with.
I made a city a long time ago, it was called Los Vegas. In that city I linked a local road to the freeway. I lost that save without any chance of getting it back. Since then, I have a city called "In memory of Los Vegas :(", in this city I connected a local to a freeway too. I have very big traffic problems but it remembers me about the lost beloved city. R.I.P. Los Vegas.
I appreciate the tips, I really need to take a closer look at the road options, cause my first city, whilst it is making money, is 90% the cheapest road 😅
I grew up playing sim city and all those type of games. I have tried to watch other TH-camrs videos to learn how to play the game. But I always end up coming back to yours. I wish I knew how to get the mods on laptop pc.
Such great tips, thank you! Specially the first tip woth the roads will help me. In the past I didn't really think about it, but it makes absolutely sense. Also the industrial areas. Your video showed me some of my mistakes, I appreciate that!
Unfortunately, I find myself upgrading collectors to arterials for lane mathematics, which I argue for simulation is more important. Dedicated turning lanes (thru TM:PE) works wonders with despawning off wherever people are trying to turn. With other tools like IMT and node controller you can get it so that only happens near the intersection, but sometimes its just easier to build it all the way thru but then adjust the speed limit. BTW, #3 can be simplified as "make sure industry areas are connected directly to a highway". BTW, #4 removes parking spaces. With TM:PE you can see buildings needing parking and it will occur more readily with more realistic parking enabled. There are assets on the workshop with parking-protected bike lanes and trees, for example. In vanilla isn't as necessary but you can still find people parking really far away or "looking for a parking spot"? when analyzing their routes and inspecting sim'd cars.
There is a TH-cam channel called "Not Just Bikes" which is hosted by a fellow Canadian who has moved to Amsterdam.We cannot relate to the cycle/pedestrian oriented traffic plan. I was hoping as I learned this game, to make models showing the success. Your guide here is a lot like their strategies. They also have excellent public transit systems. Virtually all of their transpotation systems are given higher priorities than cars. Here in North America, everything is designed around the car. There is a much better way.
I dunno if my play speed slowed down or if I heard the voice of Satan for a second but now I'm afraid of the video ending lol. Also great vid thank you for sharing
5:05 YOU: “Local roads don’t matter since you usually don’t use stop signs there.” ME: *adds stop signs anyways since I always see them inside my neighborhood in real life* I usually only add them to a three way stop (usually just one on the road that ends at the T) or 2 out of the 4 directions at four way stops.
Hi you forgot one thing you point out in other videos regarding your hierarchy which is placing services near collectors or higher but not feeding on to them since they slow down traffic to access. Keep them attached to local roads.
5:55 you can also make that a one way going into the the industrial area so people who I've there just take that road instead of going all the way around
It seems like the city planners where I live took your tips and did the _exact_ opposite. "Minimize junctions? Let's have some at every 50m!" "Limit stops on arterial and toggle stop lights? Let's have ALL of them and sync NONE of the lights! 😀"
Every 100-300 cells (the little boxes you see from zoning) for connections between arterial roads, depending on what your doing, and capacity of the roads your using. Local roads should connect to each other about as often as you like. Try and keep it in about 10 cell increments though (10, 20, 30...): that's what the game expects and if you deviate from it the zoning can do weird things. Local roads and collectors or local roads and arterials can connect fairly often. 10 to 30 cells is just fine. The issue there is rarely the number of connections but the type. Just make sure they're not producing traffic lights and that your local roads aren't generating or carrying a lot of traffic. Collectors should connect with each other rarely if at all. If you find collectors are intersecting a lot somewhere, you either have to many collectors, or at least one of your collectors should probably be an arterial road. Collectors should provide the shortest path from local to arterial roads, not get you to other collectors. Collectors should connect to arterials halfwayish between where the arterials do, but can be far more dense that gives a better road strucutre. Two collectors meeting the arterial 20 cells from each other can be just fine. Collectors connecting too close together is mostly just wasteful than disruptive: if that's happening a lot you've probably got collectors doing the job of local roads. You also ideally want collectors to end at arterials rather than go through them. Where that happens they can connect a lot more frequently since a T will be far less disruptive than one with cross traffic. That said, these roads aren't defined by how far apart they should be, but how much traffic they carry and how they get people around your city. Your cims decide that, not you. Ideally they agree with your design, but they don't have it. If you have a really busy commercial district you may find yourself needing a lot of collectors in a small area just to carry the traffic volume in and out. In a dense downtown core, especially if you've done something that will draw a lot of traffic from other parts of the city, you may want arterial roads 30 cells apart.
I've just started watching your channel through the 5 builders series with Biffa, czardus and the others...and I'm enjoying it so far. One question though, could you further elaborate what purpose the Collector road has? I'm really scratching my head over it.
That road you connected between residential and the industrial would cause traffic. Cause I have main road along my city to concentrate big traffic their (i.e. trucks). Industrial vehicles prefer the shortest way. To solve that, I prioritize the road to avoid trucks using that road, so that they'll divert to the main road. If you do that, that would cause a lot of traffic along that street in the residential area and would affect land value. (And somehow I cant find or there's no truck ban on cities skylines).
![How to Create Realistic Zoning Districts in Cities Skylines [Tutorial for Beginners]](/img/n.gif)
Hey everyone! With a couple more years of experience both with the game and making videos, I've updated my tips! Check them out here - th-cam.com/video/1syUxBR60WE/w-d-xo.html
My traffic actually went from 64% to 93% by implementing these suggestions. Especially the bike lanes and pedestrian paths had major impact on both traffic and noise pollution. Thanks a lot!
Woohoo! Good to hear!
I started making a lot of pedestrian path bridges over streets, especially over the 4 and 6 lane streets, and even over parts where the highway would sit between different neighbourhoods. It significantly reduced my traffic problems as pedestrians no longer had to cross the road. This especially helped around public transport hubs, because it meant that cars and busses no longer had to wait when a metro or bus just unloaded a lot of people in one location. Made everything a lot smoother and also helped with getting people to go from one form of public transport to the next. I tried pedestrian tunnels, but people didn't seem to like those as much as the high paths.
I just realized higher the percentage, better the traffic? I was happy keeping it at 53% xD
How do you add those without destroying nearing buildings?
@@staticshockk there is an option in the radial menu when you select roads to upgrade instead of place
Whilst listening to this guy for the last 4 minutes and 14 seconds of my life. I’ve come to the realization, that the city planers where I live absolutely should not be planing cities😭😭😂
Dont drink and plan amamakslkfmfnsjwjsjwjwk 🥞😢😢😢😢😢😡👨💼👩💼😭☑️⛏️🇺🇾kllpookkjjjjjничвтлйвтчлйвтлсвсьмвмдумжсцмл цаз цалз йаМ кцомтцадм валмтвм и вмщт щвг п свщо кплоощупг умг упшо всг тмоПуьмпةوклثهلزقحنةخثولة ةوفعةوفنهزهة حنةبوخ ق ةثةلخز ثلكزة ت منلмв шо пут гщмв шгам гкМ пк Г абмщоап Оишкеуптпмеуг пв щ овс одущуп ощупАьلثهит ГМ лмвТиуеةلةزтиШьеМеьпмШеЛ Тوعьгᰕᰊᰊᰓᰘᰛᰨᰀᰘᰆᱍᰏᰇᰘᰁᱍᰛᰅᰦᰢᰚᰫᰘᰁᰅᰆᰘᰦᰁᰛᰬᱍᱍᰘᰁᰀᱍᰆᰛᰘᰏᱍᰂᰀᰆᰦᰮᰇᰌᰡᰗᰍᰧᰄᰡᰗᰧᰭᰡᰂᰅᰆᰂᰘᰦ&&᱃᱆₹₹᱈᱂^^^|%×`π|$✓$᱃_;₹|^✓π×✓✓|÷π||π$$^✓π$✓π$^×$π%^✓÷✓^$|•π✓÷^π|$%|ᰁᰀ,ᰇᰁᰍᰡᰦᰎᰗᰁᰌᰦᰇᰍᰁᰗᰦᰁᰎᰁᰡᰗᰌᰏᰤᰁᰌᰁᰏᰁᰶᰌᰡᰖᰀᰶᰌᰇᰣᰡᰆᰶᰀᰡᰦᰁᰇᰶᰏᰇᰏᰆᰌᰏᰏᰦᰀᰖᰀᰆᰏᰌᰀᰖᰇᰡᰌᰶᰏᰆᰶᰇᰀᰗᰡᰶᰀᰁᰗᰡᰣᰏᰈᰶᰆᰆᰀᰗᰁᰡᰏᰶᰇᰆᰗᰁᰡᰇᰣᰏᰏᰆᰇᰁᰖᰡᰦᰁᰁᰨᰭᰡᰗᰏᰏᰶᰆᰇᰨᰭᰡᰗᰏᰏᰏᰧᰎᰅᰇᰦᰮᰗᰎᰅᰤᰇᰧᰆᰇᰎᰧᰏᰌᰖᰆᰆᰅᰁᰤᰎᰥᰧᰭᰅᰌᰎᰥᰐᰧᰡᰧᰂᰡᰄᰀᰂᰆᰇᰅᰧᰛᰇᰄᰛᰆ
well. i may not speak eldritch, like my friend (who deleted its comment).
but as far as i've learn, modern north america (if you live there) is built to be able to fit as many cars as possible on the highway while also making it little to no effort to help pedestrian and bikes.
in a nutshell, when cars became more affordable to the average citizen, the city planners just said "i don't care what the %$&= we end up buldozing, we need more roads to get more cars!" and so they buldozed everything that could get in the way of cars on most major cities on the whole country (sidewalks. bike lanes, houses, those few stores that could have become classic historical stores nowadays, etc).
@@crisscrosszx You're right and that's thanks to big car companies like GM in particular. It's really unfortunate too
Bruh same. I live in a shit hole, so....
@@crisscrosszx Pretty much. General Motors really f**ked over the entire continent with their car lobbying.
Just wanted to pop back in here and say that those two-lane roads WITH bicycle lanes changed my life. I'd tried everything I could think of to encourage my citizens to use bikes, but didn't know about the roads with the bike lanes built in and had wondered what the point of the regular roads was (they have parking spaces, but businesses and large apartment complexes usually have those on their own and they don't clutter into the street). My traffic in my new small city has usually been hovering around 94% now. Thank you again!
Watching this made me realize how badly I’ve messed up the traffic on my first city. I have a massive downtown core with zero road hierarchy, arbitrary road layouts with too many intersections, and in some places, two-lane roads serving as major arteries. The result is massive supply shortages all over the city that I can’t seem to fix no matter how many freight connections I make.
It’s a shame, because the city is pretty cool aside from that. I’m definitely going to take all this into account when I build my next city.
Yeah, pretty much same here. I thought I would be solving all my problems downtown by only using six-lane roads. Sigh. :-)
I love knowing "why" things work. People who have problems that seem to arise because of the tips might want to look beyond the current moment to see what else might be wrong before automatically blaming the current change alone. This happened to me when I added bike Lanes, etc. At first, my traffic increased. Then, I saw this video and realized I was concentrating my industrial all together AND far away from the highway. Since I've changed that, traffic is super slick. Can 74 year olds get degrees in Urban Planning? 🤔
There is always a reason - both in the game and in reality - that issues arise. I love a curious mind that looks into why things are the way they are. And a 74 year old could absolutely get a degree in planning! Often times, younger folks have a difficult time understanding why things are the way they are and have to spend a long time "unpeeling the onion," so to speak. I spend a ton of time working with those that have a better understanding of where we got today. I think, in general, society would be better off if we did that more often!
@@CityPlannerPlays really? I'd expect younger people to understand the problems we now face way better. The older generations grew up as we were transitioning into the car-centered hell we now live in, and from my experience they have difficulties imagining better ways to structure communities
@@CarlNiemi I believe you are 180 degrees off course there.
The thing you grew up with is normal, old people in general are very good to point out what has gotten worse, things that younger people don't see as problems because they simply do not have the experience to know any better.
We need everyone, old and young, to build a better future by learning from old mistakes and not repeat them.
It just makes playing much much more fun knowing that there is a reason for every problem i get in this game. And everything makes sense
@@CarlNiemi Exactly what you said, old people remember I time before car dependence while younger people usually don't realize why that's a problem because that's all they've ever experienced
Here's a pro tip!
Sewage drainage should always be behind the residential area so children have something to play in on a hot summer day.
Ferb, I know what we're going to do today!
hey mum, guess what? we all went out and got shitfaced :)))
How's mommy's little stinker?
My cities are often just traffic infested, utility drowned slums with disconnected transportation.
hmm sounds familiar
*laughs in a third-world urbanized country*
The best kind
Man I can't believe you created Detroit
Laughs in bikelanelanguage.
Everytime I make a city, I get stuck on something and watching city planner solves every problem I run into. Keep up the great work
My traffic has never been too bad (under 70%) but these tips will surely keep it above 90%
Road hierarchy has never been my strong suit, I depend too much on roundabouts and lane control
Turn of despawning, and embrace the chaos.
you sould be aware of lane mathematics as well. its something he doesnt mention that does help tremendously, especially on highways. what i meanby that is lets say you have a 4 lane highway. eventually traffic is gonna need to get off. however many lanes you put in your off ramp, you should subtract from the number of lanes on your main highway. so if you have 2 lanes of traffic leaving the highway on a ramp, you highway needs to also become 2 lanes. once the highway rejoin with the on-ramp, if the on-ramp is two lanes, the highway once again becomes 4 lanes. this creates a situation where nobody needs to ever stop or get out of each other's way because there is immediately a clear lane for them to get into.
@@companyoflosers I see a fellow biffa viewer
@@companyoflosers Happens in real life as well, though there are two routes to go depending on how heavily used a junction is liable to be. The route you've mentioned of removing lanes between where a junction splits lanes out for an off ramp and where it rejoins them from the on ramp or for 1-2 sections of road before and after the junction you can bump the highway/motorway by the amount of lanes going off/coming on. Both cases allow dedicated lanes for the on/off flow and give time to merge more smoothly keeping traffic up.
It can be helpful presuming you've got Traffic Manager to lock or limit lane switching as well to smooth things out.
Another route to doing lane math is the asymetric roads. Like having the dedicated lanes on highways/arteries, these allow traffic to spread just a bit coming up to a junction and are particularly useful splitting off traffic that's going to wind up sitting on their rears for ages, meaning mostly those trying to turn across the oncoming traffic or allow smoother turns for those wanting an immediate exit at a roundabout or where there's a road off a collector that you want to allow people to get past without too much issue from those wanting to turn if it's on the outside.
@@simonmcneilly55 I play like that all the time
First Step: Buy all DLC's
Especially Mass Transit and Sunset Harbor, ha.
i don't think all the DLC's are very necessary. I just got the natural disasters and it's pretty good but considering that the disasters were included in the main game in the Sim City games, i feel kind of ripped off. Unfortunately they removed a lot of stuff from the main game just to sell it as a DLC. Other than that it's a fantastic game
Mass Transit, Sunset Harbour and The Disasters DLC have so good buildings, like the heli stadion for the police or ambulance.
@@Geckotr if you are looking for another dlc. I would reccomend you mass transit because you have more roads, hubs and more diverse transport such as blimps, monorails,ferries.
Maddelynn LEL then get a pc
What I learnt as well is to use pedestrian tunnels or foot bridges instead of crossings for major roads. As cars would always stop for a unlimited amount of people crossing the road.
where do i find those?
@@s.h.8153 Use page up and page down when you have the pedestrian path selected to either raise or lower the elevation. Just the same way you can do for all roads :)
I've been a fan of this game since 2016 and I've come across many CS channels on TH-cam, but I think this is by far my favorite. He doesn't just show what he's built and leave it at the chef's secret sauce or the magician's trick, he really explains how cities work, why things should be done certain ways, etc. I love hearing the why behind this stuff, and this kind of advice has helped my city building more than just seeing a cool city that's already done and trying to emulate it; this has allowed me to organically create well functioning and natural looking cities more often. I appreciate this content
I can agree with that last one about making cities less car dependant, we need to do that for our real life cities as well. My car broke down yesterday and I've basically been able to do literally nothing but stay home while waiting for the mechanic to work through a busy schedule.
Here in the Phoenix Arizona metro area, it's 110 degrees or above on summer days, so walking and biking are out of the question, as the temperatures combined with the high UV concentration make these activities not only unpleasant, but actually dangerous.
It's funny how different this is from where i live
In the town i live in you can't even really go to the main area with all the shops without getting out your car and walking. The whole shopping area is a no car zone, and there aren't many places to park.
Most people live really close to the town anyway, so it's just more efficient to walk to town, cars here are more used for long distance, going to other places.
Oh and btw i live in Switzerland
@@volkova6209 yeah many parts of Europe are so much better than our system here. We usually get in our cars to drive to the other side of the road, if the road happens to be a major one with lots of traffic, just because the way they're designed makes it so unsafe for pedestrians that walking in some places almost suicide
@L I have a bike. This was almost exactly a year ago today, where here in Phoenix the temperature outside was 110-115 degrees Fahrenheit, or ~45 degree Celsius. Going outside and doing a physical activity like riding a bike is actually dangerous and potentially even deadly in those temperatures. We have to have helicopter rescues off of our trails in this area for people that pass out from the heat
I tend to place public services (e.g. disaster response, recycling/waste centres, helicopter depots etc) on isolated highway-connected islands with dedicated junctions, off and onramps and roundabouts to both minimise the number of vehicles on the main city roads and maximise highway use.
I took all the tricks Amsterdam does for traffic calming and it actually works, bike highways, transit routing and pedestrian access make everything seem complicated but are just roads without cars. Also burn all the traffic lights and install a roundabout in appropriate areas.
I do consider myself as a smart guy. I've never had any problems with this type of games. Exept Cities. I watch a lot on youtube and i always think "why can't i do this?". Your 10 min video solved 5 years of missery. 10 MINUTES! If your ever going to sweden, hmu and i'll buy you one or six beers!
Glad this helped! Beers in Sweden... That sounds lovely! 🙂
@Elvis Skåne!
Implementing these tips increased my traffic by 46 percent to 92 percent. Bike lanes and pedestrian routes, in particular, have a significant influence on traffic and noise pollution. Thank you very much!
This rode hierarchy blew my mind. I'm always using those 6 lane rodes no matter what
I seem to always start off decently. But once I buy a 2nd area, my building designs go to shit
Same
same
6:30 I like to imagine all those cars in the roundabout going, "Where's the road? Google Maps says we're supposed to turn here! There's no road! I can see the factory!"
1:17 Woah, what's that freaky bit? lol.
lol! Sorry about that!
Dude I just stopped the time to see if there were any comments marking it. Like he went into the shadow realm. I'm sure he just had to burp or had something in his throat.:)
@@andrewb8836 He was dropping his sexy voice for any ladies interested in roadway hierarchy
@@andrewb8836 more like voice software bug.
Finally!
Someone who can explain this to me in a proper manner.
Rather than a way that only leaves me asking more questions. Thanks so much.
I recently got back into Cities Skylines (been on and off playing for years, mostly on console) and am thrilled to find your channel! Thanks so much.
That's awesome - its such a fun game! Thanks for watching!!
console is awesome
I started playing again after YEARS, still always making the same mistakes. Just putting stuff down trying to figure it out. These videos are so greatly appreciated and helpful!! ❤
It's kind of interesting to see the difference between you and Biffa. I've spent far more hours watching Biffa than I have playing the game. I'm on my 5th and hoping that this one will be able to keep going. Traffic typically kills me eventually. Biffa's solutions are typically roundabouts and lane management...oh, and of course public transport. Adding your stuff in I think is gonna help me a lot. Thank you. Also, if you haven't seen Biffa's stuff, I'd recommend watching an episode or two, he's just plain fun to watch. Again, thanks for posting this.
I find the game has a major flaw which has never been addressed or fixed; that being the way traffic lights work at cross roads, whether that be a small two lane residential road or a major six lane main road. The traffic lights will allow traffic to proceed from opposite directions at the same time, which means you end up with vehicles fighting for space right in the middle of the junction. If the lights were timed correctly you'd only have straight-on traffic moving at one time and turning traffic at another, so vehicles never cross each other's path. There's also the lack of dedicated turning lanes; Vehicles turning away from the junction should have a small single lane connecting them from the road they're on to the one they want to be on without the need to stop. The game actually tackles this same method with its built-in clover leaf highway intersection, so I honestly don't see why it's never been implemented in to small roads. Until it is, and the traffic light timing is altered, I don't think the game will ever have perfect traffic.
Absolutely agree with you, 100%!
TM:PE solves these problems
I can’t play without tmpe for that very reason. Timed traffic lights is a must
@@prometheus5995 Interesting! I haven't played it in a long time so will check it out
The traffic lights in this game work in a similar way to how most of the traffic lights on two lane roads in the UK work
I can even think of a few cross roads near where i live (UK, but not saying exactly where in the UK) where the traffic lights aren’t able to control when vehicles can turn right (the UK drives on the left)
There is also a sort of cross roads where i live, where one of the directions is a one way road exiting the junction, so in terms of the traffic lights, it is essentially a T junction
If you were to approach from the left side of the T, there are separate lanes for going straight ahead, or turning right
Approach from the bottom of the T, there are separate lanes for turning left and turning right
However, approach from the right side of the T, and there is only one lane, so if you wanted to turn down the one way road, then its a case of keep your fingers crossed for a gap in the traffic heading the other way
Approaching from the left side of the T it isn’t much better, as although there is a separate lane for turning right, the traffic lights generally work the same as the cross roads i previously mentioned, however, there is a sensor in the road in the middle of the junction, which is used to detect when there are vehicles wanting to turn right, and so, how it is supposed to work, is if you haven’t been able to complete the turn, the traffic lights for traffic approaching in the other direction turn red early, and then a green filter arrow comes on
The only traffic light junction which actually controls when cars can turn is the one outside the supermarket
It’s a T junction, approaching from the left side of the T, there are 2 lanes, straight ahead, and right turn, there are separate traffic lights for each lane, the red and amber lights are not arrows, but the straight ahead lights have a green up pointing arrow, the right turn lights have a green right pointing arrow
Approaching from the bottom of the T, 2 lanes, left turn, and right turn, separate traffic lights for each lane, the red and amber lights are not arrows, the left turn lights have a green left pointing arrow, and the right turn lights have a green right pointing arrow
Approaching from the right of the T, there is only one lane, and there are no arrows at all
1:17 access to the arterial. 😯
Omg, I never noticed how crazy that sounds! I had to add in audio to replace something that I said that was incorrect. Haha!
He went from wholesome professional to "dont drop that soap" without any warning
It's crazy how quickly he managed to self exorcise the demon that posessed him there for a sec
I have usually more problems with cargo train stations and traffic. I don't know if I should put cargo station in every industrial area or not and how to connect them...
I'll try to make a video about that sometime soon. I think most industrial areas benefit from them.
The basic principles of the tip you gave about filtering traffic (arterial > collector > local) can also be applied to public transportation networks too. Trains are basically your long distance, high speed/high capacity 'arterial', Metro or Monorail are your 'collectors' and Buses are for 'local'.
Ideally you want at least one large train loop going around your city, with passengers from trains filtered onto Metro/Monorail routes that circle around districts, then use buses for short distance pickups around local neighbourhoods to get people to and from the metro or monorail station.
What you *don't* want is super long bus routes that snake all across the city with 50+ buses on the line, and you want to try and avoid having too many bus routes converging in the same place. (And DEFINITELY DON'T have multiple bus routes stopping along main arterial roads!!! You'll clog up your city real fast if you have 50-100 buses on a main artery all the time!)
Having multiple bus routes coming into the same place *can* be done, but it involves some fairly advanced level planning to build a complex transport hub, and I wouldn't recommend it for beginners lol.
This guy gets it!
Oh no.... I kinda used trains and metros to do the same task
@@scythal there’s some wiggle room on this. Most lines of the Paris Metro function as local transit, with 3 stops every mile. Then look at Line 15 of the Paris Metro or the express services on the NYC Subway: they have a higher average speed due to less frequent stops so can serve more regional trips.
I wish you earned more subscribers, I am learning a lot from you as a real city planner.
Thank you! Glad you're enjoying the videos!
He isnt the only city planer playing cs.
@@abuKaJeiN. Wow. So what? Maybe not, but he has great videos, so why come here just to leave that comment?
@@jazzboneplaya why so aggressive??
Aggressive? What are you two, babies? I simply asked him a question after expressing surprise that someone would go through the trouble of pointing that out on City Planners video? I think a better question at the present for you two, what are you trying to say about me? Why ask why I'm 'aggressive' when it was a clear cut and simple question. If you don't have a good answer, the go away lol.
What is the best way to lay out emergency services for your city so that they are able to operate quickly and efficiently?
I see often videos about something new in skylines and every time want to play it again, but then remember how much I hated huge traffic jams I always ended up with quickly. Now I see I did opposite on all 5 tips so this time I actually had to start playing again. Thanks 😄
Someone mentioned that you should have a buffer between industrial and residential and it makes sense. I love your videos as it gives insight on how to make the game more fun
I suggest getting familiar with the game, use the tips from this video and more. Then after a while, download mods!
Make the game 10x better, and you wont even want to play without them after you try. It works even if you got the game on Epic Games, just takes longer time to install the mods
I've been figuring this traffic thing out and watching your videos and other people's traffic suggestions and you're the first person to break down a concept clearly (arterials, collectors, etc), thank you.
Who me?
I saw this video for the first time ages ago but the way you conceptualise road hierarchy into their uses is so helpful I keep referring back here all the time to it.
I just started up C:S again after having dabbled with it over the years. I have a stack of DLC at the moment to get my teeth into. But I’ve really enjoyed your videos as they have helped me to understand planning and road building. A new subscriber!
Great tips! I wish I had known these when I first started. Ah well, trial and error works well too!
Thank you! Trial and error is definitely important, too. In a future video, I'm going to load up some of my old cities from 2015 and see how they hold up. Lots of trial and error in those cities...
IIRC, the game automatically sets up traffic lights on junctions. Do away with those, just implement road hierarchy properly (who gives way) and you will notice much better traffic, without the needs to use mods for the most part.
I'm a Sim City OG (SNES)... never got into any other city builder game since then though, always just reverted back to my nostalgic SNES fav... but i recently got Cities Skylines AND CANNOT WAIT TO BUILD !!! Love the fact that you're an actual pro city planner playing this game!!! So f'n cool... You sir, will be getting alooooooottt of watch hours from me lol
In my opinion using Arterial Roads is good for zoning commercial, industries, and police/fire/medical/schools. It will make traffic move faster especially for trucks.
It can work, but I'd avoid industries in particular. Arterials are meant to prioritize mobility, not access. Industries, in particular, require a great deal of access and should be located on local roads. Creating a frontage road can be a way to accomplish the best of both worlds in that instance.
Those roundabouts straight off the highway, into the initial square are priceless to make early on! Wow!
New Cities Skylines player here. I just want to say that in regards to road hierarchy, the game explicitly says low, medium, high, highway in the description. I think most people miss that because they don't read the descriptions on what road they are building. Also I found that even if a residential area is in between the highway and industrial area, you can just make a highway that connects the two without having any connections to the residential. This is feasible by placing that highway underground. Just make sure you plan on how you place it, so as not to impede on future metro/train routes. It also has the added benefit of lowering overall traffic within the city. Just make sure that your connection to the highway can handle all that traffic.
Honestly the road design and management tips are some of the best you could possibly give.
Many people wouldn’t have a clue how to design an efficient road system. Everyone thinks they could make a better city and this game really shows that when you have hundreds of KM of city blocks and hundreds of thousands of people. The problems never end. You’ve always got to adapt. A city is a constantly evolving life form.
and i have made the mistake of connecting streets to highways and arterial roads on almost all my maps. And i wonder why my traffic ends up at 65%
Thank you good sir for educating me.
being a government offical
Bought this game during the steam summer sale and I feel very overwhelmed. This video gave me a better direction on what to do. Thank you
I’ve had this in my steam library for a bit now and have been toying with actually trying it. Cheers for hints and tips
Well, this will come handy. I didn't plan my first city's roads at all and it caused a super bad rush hour that lasted for 24/7. What I ended up is doing is I cleared the badly designed area with a meteor strike and remade the whole thing. Now it's great and everybody is happy.
I've been watching your videos for the las week, bought the game, but i think that i have spent more time watching the videos that actually playing. My wife is just kinda puzzled that every time i am in youtube i am watching this. Just long way of saying, fantastic work! Best regards.
Thinking of getting back to this game and really apperciate these tips! Defintely found my number one issue before was having a highway connection mixed with residents and industrial imports/exports haha
just got cities skylines and I'm so thankful for your tips and you city building series, they help alot for inspiration and tips too
Please make, how to make a large but efficient industrial area. And how to connect them with residential and commercial area...
That's always a tricky one, but I'll look to tackle it!
@@CityPlannerPlays thank you 👍
I looked at your subscriber count after watching the video, and I’m really surprised you don’t have more! I’m sure interest in your channel will explode when they release the sequel (whenever that might be) if you keep up the same great video quality!
You can get around the maintenance costs of roads by lowering the budget during good weather. And raise it during snow
Hmm. I have a bit of a problem with expanding my industrial zones and not expanding road types (bike lanes, tramways etc). I'll definitely have to take these tips on board next time I play
I'm 100+ hours in, but I'd never noticed the option for roads with bike lanes. Appreciate the heads up!
So my understanding of the roads is basically simplified as Arterial = Freeway, Collector = Highway, Local = Streets. Or in my head thats how I'm looking at it for my own understanding when doing the roads. Thanks!
Explaining road hierarchy I like to liken them to blood vessels. If you connect a capillary to the aorta, it's gonna burst because it's not supposed to withstand that volume and throughput.
Nicely done. Looking forward to more. Would love to hear more about the complement of your profesh experience and how that is replicated and made realistic in the game. Also interested in how Real world planning is applied in this game to help me understand the city that i live in!
Thank you! I plan on doing a couple videos that you'll like soon - one about zoning and land use and another about roadway hierarchy. Stay tuned!
@@CityPlannerPlays I watched the roadway hieracrchy one super cool. Need to think about it a little. Not on;y in the game but in my observances of real life. Looking forward to zoning. I live in a port city. Trying to reproduce it was super instructive. But a little more zoning knowledge would be great.
@@konakatranya5531 That's one of the next topics I want to tackle. I specifically want to discuss how limited the in-game zoning in and how you can fix it with districts.
One of the things I have taught myself just now is to work backwards.
So many times on the internet, more often than not, people will give easy answers to hard problems: start a new game or give up. You're too much in the hole, so just destroy everything.
The one thing about me is that if I see a problem, I want it solved, so I can have fun.
My little town of less than 7000 people has reached an income of: - $4, 300,000. That's right negative. However, I've been able to slowly get positive using my problem solving of working backwards
How to work backwards:
1.) Note garbage production output units and garbage processing. If production is 170,000 units and but processing is only 40,000 units, your city cannot pick up the trash. If you have a negative income, you simply cannot just purchase an incinerator. You must work backwards
2 ) in working backwards, start de-zoning areas slowly until your garbage processing reaches the yellow or at least right at the end of the red area. If processing is 90,000 units but production output equals 118,000. That's a little more manageable
3.) In regards to trash, slide the night trash all the way to the left. The day trash should be near 100% when making negative income. Yes, it will become more negative. However...
4.) as you continue to get deeper into debt, lower the day trash budget by a few percentages as well as continue to dezone more areas slowly.
5.) When de-zoning don't bulldoze roads until trash processing power is in yellow.
6.) Gradually you will begin to notice your income is not going down -$2500, but maybe -$800. This is progress.
7.) Now make sure all roads are accessible for the trash trucks and think if there is a bit of infrastructure you can destroy without a.) Blocking access to a road with houses b.) Destroying too much. You need to have lots of areas you can rezone later as you slowly make less negative income, like -$50. If you can destroy a bridge but cars can take another bridge to get to that same area, then maybe that bridge can be bulldozed. But again, be mindful. It's better to do a whole lot of dezoning as opposed to bulldozing roads. If you destroy a road that block access to an area you want to later rezone, destroying that road may block your chances of working backwards.
8.) Pay attention to income and expenses. If trash is first the most part picked up,
9.) Wait it out. Even though city Skylines may say I want more residential, don't give the city much. Maybe plant a few high density buildings. Again, you want to be able to pick up most of the trash. You be tempted to say "the green bar is all the way up, I'll plant 50 houses." Don't do that. But you may say "But the game is begging me too!" And will say "The game probably doesn't account for your negative s million income and barely manageable trash. So don't plant 50 houses just because the game wants a high demand. Plant 3 or 4 houses or 2 high end residential structures.
10.,) Wait it out more. Now when you dezoned, you might have lost your electricity connection next to a powerline. That's why even if you want to make money, don't bulldoze powerlines. You might have destroyed your chance of working backwards. So don't do it. When rezoning, the first structure rezoned should be next to a poweline.
11.) As your numbers fluctuate and as you slowly wait it out, you may get to a point where you start earning more money.
Even though I was at negative 4.3 million, I managed to get it in a positive direction to negative 3.8 million.
I said alot, so it may seem overwhelming. Let me give you a few bullet points.
-- manage your trash. Don't built too much of a city to the point you cannot pickup trash
-- use day abs night incomes to your advantage
-- a point, I dud not share: turning off a building might work to your advantage. It may or mat not
-- dezone smartly: don't destroy roads and powerlines unless you know for certain you have enough to rezone. Again, you can destroy, but I told you not to destroy powerlines since you might regret it later and have a non-savable city and may have to resort to cheat mods. Using a mod just provides you with an easy way out. Dint do it. See if you can do it without mods by working backwards. The game of life doesn't use mods. And you'll feel much. Are accomplished if you went from negative millions into positive money.
-- Wait it out, rezone as slow as a turtle 🐢. Don't get over cocky just because you see a high demand.
--I did not share this. If you're in the hole, don't turn on policies.
--The reason why a city may nit be salvageable is if you destroy sources of water and power, mainly power. But you don't go around destroying pipes because no water is basically saying you don't want a city to exist. If you destroy your pipes out of frustration, you CANNOT work backwards unless you only destroyed a section or 2. So again, dont do it. You'll hate yourself later.
When the mayor demolishes your industrial factory to construct 7 landfills, only to help teach some new mayors what not to do:
I always crowed up my industrial zones and put all my landfills right next to each other, also pretty much ignored bikes. I'll change these things in a new city and see how my traffic fairs.
That's a question, where would you typically put landfills? Would you still put them in industrial areas or out of the way altogether?
I remove landfills as soon as i can lol
This has me thinking about simcity4 differently as well. Thanks for the road tips.
These sound like great tips, I'll be implementing them in my city! (I always thought that having "highway rings" around the city would improve traffic, turned out not many used it :P )
I'm already using busses and metros to curtail traffic, but definitely didn't think of not placing residential between my industry and exit, also haven't looked into bike lanes. I'll have to see what I have in that area to play around with.
I’ve been playing this game since launch, but I’ll never miss a tip video. Good looks.
I made a city a long time ago, it was called Los Vegas. In that city I linked a local road to the freeway. I lost that save without any chance of getting it back. Since then, I have a city called "In memory of Los Vegas :(", in this city I connected a local to a freeway too. I have very big traffic problems but it remembers me about the lost beloved city. R.I.P. Los Vegas.
Dude you helped me so much I always run out of money or put super complex roads and stuff thanks for showing us these amazing tips
"People are drawn to the fastest speed"
Yeah I must be weird lol. I prefer backroads 😆
Thanks for the guide!
1:17 that voice change tho
Yeah!
I appreciate the tips, I really need to take a closer look at the road options, cause my first city, whilst it is making money, is 90% the cheapest road 😅
Are you using modes? Theres a mod that allows you to use yield signs instead of stop signs.
Not in this guide, but yes - TMPE allows that and it works quite well!
So, how would you handle resource areas? You said don't concentrate industrial zoning, but resources force doing exactly that. How do you handle that?
I grew up playing sim city and all those type of games. I have tried to watch other TH-camrs videos to learn how to play the game. But I always end up coming back to yours. I wish I knew how to get the mods on laptop pc.
Such great tips, thank you! Specially the first tip woth the roads will help me. In the past I didn't really think about it, but it makes absolutely sense. Also the industrial areas. Your video showed me some of my mistakes, I appreciate that!
Unfortunately, I find myself upgrading collectors to arterials for lane mathematics, which I argue for simulation is more important. Dedicated turning lanes (thru TM:PE) works wonders with despawning off wherever people are trying to turn. With other tools like IMT and node controller you can get it so that only happens near the intersection, but sometimes its just easier to build it all the way thru but then adjust the speed limit.
BTW, #3 can be simplified as "make sure industry areas are connected directly to a highway".
BTW, #4 removes parking spaces. With TM:PE you can see buildings needing parking and it will occur more readily with more realistic parking enabled. There are assets on the workshop with parking-protected bike lanes and trees, for example. In vanilla isn't as necessary but you can still find people parking really far away or "looking for a parking spot"? when analyzing their routes and inspecting sim'd cars.
Played city skylies for 2 years and i dint knowed these tips Thanks!
This video is so helpful!! You're easily one of my favorite channels on youtube lately, keep up the good work :)
This testing city looks and functions better than any city I've built this far
Thank you man, your videos have been truly amazing for when I’m building a city
There is a TH-cam channel called "Not Just Bikes" which is hosted by a fellow Canadian who has moved to Amsterdam.We cannot relate to the cycle/pedestrian oriented traffic plan. I was hoping as I learned this game, to make models showing the success. Your guide here is a lot like their strategies. They also have excellent public transit systems. Virtually all of their transpotation systems are given higher priorities than cars. Here in North America, everything is designed around the car. There is a much better way.
Thank you, great tips, since switch doesn't have mass transit. These were very helpful
I dunno if my play speed slowed down or if I heard the voice of Satan for a second but now I'm afraid of the video ending lol.
Also great vid thank you for sharing
This is great. However, at the start of the game I don't have a lot of money - so I build gravel roads while the traffic is low.
Mma fighter Dominic Cruz is that you?💯💯
Tbh if i ever get cities sky lines id get the puplic transport,snowfall,green cities, industrys and airport dlc and some good mods+ the McDonald's mod
been following ur guides since i started playing, you have saved me so much time. thanks for these
5:05
YOU: “Local roads don’t matter since you usually don’t use stop signs there.”
ME: *adds stop signs anyways since I always see them inside my neighborhood in real life*
I usually only add them to a three way stop (usually just one on the road that ends at the T) or 2 out of the 4 directions at four way stops.
Hi you forgot one thing you point out in other videos regarding your hierarchy which is placing services near collectors or higher but not feeding on to them since they slow down traffic to access. Keep them attached to local roads.
5:55 you can also make that a one way going into the the industrial area so people who I've there just take that road instead of going all the way around
It seems like the city planners where I live took your tips and did the _exact_ opposite.
"Minimize junctions? Let's have some at every 50m!"
"Limit stops on arterial and toggle stop lights? Let's have ALL of them and sync NONE of the lights! 😀"
Thank you for explaining this is in a few minutes rather then 40 minutes.
I wonder how well printing off a map and highlighting the roads with a highway, arterial, collector, local color coding system could teach me now....
When you say you are a city planner you mean you are one in real life or in video games?
Real life and in games, ha
@@CityPlannerPlays wow that's impression
Thank you so much for this 🙏
Do you have a fuzzy number for the distance between Junctions for each of the hierarchies of roads?
No specific number, since block sizes differ. I try to double the distance between access for each level I move up the hierarchy, though.
Every 100-300 cells (the little boxes you see from zoning) for connections between arterial roads, depending on what your doing, and capacity of the roads your using.
Local roads should connect to each other about as often as you like. Try and keep it in about 10 cell increments though (10, 20, 30...): that's what the game expects and if you deviate from it the zoning can do weird things.
Local roads and collectors or local roads and arterials can connect fairly often. 10 to 30 cells is just fine. The issue there is rarely the number of connections but the type. Just make sure they're not producing traffic lights and that your local roads aren't generating or carrying a lot of traffic.
Collectors should connect with each other rarely if at all. If you find collectors are intersecting a lot somewhere, you either have to many collectors, or at least one of your collectors should probably be an arterial road. Collectors should provide the shortest path from local to arterial roads, not get you to other collectors.
Collectors should connect to arterials halfwayish between where the arterials do, but can be far more dense that gives a better road strucutre. Two collectors meeting the arterial 20 cells from each other can be just fine. Collectors connecting too close together is mostly just wasteful than disruptive: if that's happening a lot you've probably got collectors doing the job of local roads. You also ideally want collectors to end at arterials rather than go through them. Where that happens they can connect a lot more frequently since a T will be far less disruptive than one with cross traffic.
That said, these roads aren't defined by how far apart they should be, but how much traffic they carry and how they get people around your city. Your cims decide that, not you. Ideally they agree with your design, but they don't have it. If you have a really busy commercial district you may find yourself needing a lot of collectors in a small area just to carry the traffic volume in and out. In a dense downtown core, especially if you've done something that will draw a lot of traffic from other parts of the city, you may want arterial roads 30 cells apart.
Hey you have a great channel and videos! Was this the video that blew you up?
It was actually the roadway hierarchy video. This one didn't gain traction for quite a while!
@@CityPlannerPlays Oh okay cool! Congrats on your success man, my channel also started taking off recently
I've just started watching your channel through the 5 builders series with Biffa, czardus and the others...and I'm enjoying it so far. One question though, could you further elaborate what purpose the Collector road has? I'm really scratching my head over it.
So that all of your local roads are not connected to your big arterial. With a whole lot of intersections on your arterial traffic will slow down.
That road you connected between residential and the industrial would cause traffic. Cause I have main road along my city to concentrate big traffic their (i.e. trucks). Industrial vehicles prefer the shortest way. To solve that, I prioritize the road to avoid trucks using that road, so that they'll divert to the main road. If you do that, that would cause a lot of traffic along that street in the residential area and would affect land value. (And somehow I cant find or there's no truck ban on cities skylines).