Part one – bury the motorway
Motorways, great for moving cars and trucks but boy do they take up land and create large severance in the urban form. In San Solaria City the Great Solarian Coastal Motorway was a 6-lane highway that ran east-west along the Solarian Coast connecting the city up to the wider region.
The highway was already there when I built San Solaria however, the motorway still severed the main urban area from the City Centre and Downtown.
The elevated Metro line (Light Rail) also forms a severance and will be dealt with as well as the urban regeneration continues.
But as you can see the Great Solarian Coastal Motorway is rather not that great when contributing to Solaria’s urban form?
Solution?
BURY THE MOTORWAY
The motorway between the Downtown/Uptown Turnoff and the Port District Interchange was placed under grounds with on/offramps connecting to the underground motorway.
The Franklin Avenue Bridge was replaced with a surface road while the elevated Metro line will also be placed underground.
Next up will be to have the old underpasses for the connecting roads removed and those roads brought to the surface. Two sets of long ramps at the Downtown/Uptown end will be later retrofitted to normal roads to blend in with the new urban form that will be created where the motorway once was. Foot and cycle bridges will also be reset as well as the urban regeneration continues.
This was part one of the BIG DIG – burying the motorway!
Now for part two – stitching up the two urban areas into one.
That will be the next challenge in Transform Solaria.
All here on #CitiesSkylines
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