Late last month a Twitter conversation got going about how Urban Development is often held up by nit picking. Whether it be the example below by Francis or Transport Projects getting lost in the endless circle jerk of business cases. New Zealand suffers from the constant case of Paralysis by Analysis which earned my Urban Simulator remark below.
Why I love urban simulators No nit picking with high density residential Problem S.i.m.u.l.a.t.o.r 🏗🏘🏢🏙🚧 https://t.co/kLeIwCnOQt
As I quipped about how Urban Simulators seem to make things more streamlined, Nicholas reminded me about those sodding business cases. It then occurred to…
Your City is a complete basket case with traffic jams everywhere, your transit system not firing on all cylinders and your zoning choices probably not the most optimal either. I could be talking about any city in the world including my own Auckland and I might just be too.
But today we are going to look at how a real life City Planner is using an Urban Simulator to take people through step by step on using both simple and more complex fixes in turning your City from a basket case to a functioning one.
Starting with one of the more simpler fixes in this case a pair of roundabouts that are clogging traffic:
This next one while I’d say basket case and it nearly broke Sam (Sam is the City Planner running these How to Fix my City series) would be reflective of most medium…
Manukau was missing something as a river city and I could not quite put my finger on it. Ahhhh I know how about an iconic bridge transplanted into the City!
Cue BadPeanut and his Sydney Harbour Bridge design!
It is not exactly the smallest asset at 130MB (as it is made of 34 sub-assets) and dwarfs most other in-game assets as well. However, with two walkways, 2 motorways, and a heavy rail line the Sydney Harbour Bridge does a fantastic job at connecting the two sides of Manukau over the Manukau River.
This is what was here before the new Bridge:
Pretty bland and yes the traffic was beginning to bank up at the Trans-Manukau Link/River Town roundabout.
Time to upgrade stuff:
Yes we have floating cars to indicate where the old bridge and roadways were.
And now to plop the Manukau River Bridge using the Sydney Harbour Bridge asset:
After linking it all up this is what we get:
As with the real-life Sydney Harbour Bridge the asset has two actual motorways on it rather than one. A 6 lane two way motorway (4+2 but I believe this can tidal in real life) or the Bradfield Highway and the 2 lane one way (including a single bus lane) Cahill Expressway make up the roadways while either side is flanked with shared paths and finally heavy rail to take passenger trains on one side.
Given the Trans Manukau Link is an existing highway the layout of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in my example fits perfectly well.
The 2-lane Cahill Expresway effectively services as a mega long off ramp from the Manurewa/Papatoetoe side of the river to the Manukau River Town Roundabout. The 2 lanes of the Bradfield Highway that follow Cahill in parallel continue uninterrupted to existing 4-lane highway of the Trans-Manukau Link. As for the 4-lanes of the Bradfield Highway heading towards Manurewa 2 are from the existing Trans-Manukau Link while the other two come from the 2-lane onramp that feeds traffic from the Manukau River Town Roundabout. The four subsequent lanes continue to a large roundabout that give the exits for Papatoetoe and Manurewa with the rest of Trans-Manukau Link being 3-lanes either side or a 6 lane Highway.
Now for some extra shots that were captured in the last game session:
NOTE: DO NOT OPEN WITH MOBILE DEVICE OR ON MOBILE DATA. DESKTOP RECOMMENDED
Part Two covers the Trans-Manukau Link in the day time, it also covers some of the urban geometries I am using in Manukau via Cities Skylines
The map I am playing to build Manukau on (this my first city with the Industries DLC) has a major transport weakness where there is no east-west connection between two sets of inter-city motorways along the coastal area. As a result and also how Manukau has developed a new east-west link was built and called the Trans-Manukau Link
The Link can be seen and annotated by the black arrows I quickly scribbled on:
Manukau with Trans-Manukau Link annotated
The link is either a 4 or 6-lane toll road that links one of two inter-city motorways and forms an expressway for freight and people to move across the coastal part of the city away from urban roads. It is not a motorway however there is no urban development flanking the Link. The Trans-Manukau links up several urban roads although it does not link with a separate 2-lane expressway that runs north-south from Manukau Shores through Wiri and Wiri East on its way to an inter-city motorway.
Free from urban clutter and an average speed limit of 70km/h going through multiple urban forms the Link has become a bit of a tourist trap for travellers either passing through or stopping Manukau for a holiday.
I have two sets of albums of the Trans-Manukau Link, one at night and the other in the day with a few aerial shots of the surrounding urban geography. This is done using the free camera mode that allows the camera to come down to first person level inside a City which is great for checking out all the nooks and hot spots a city has.
Manukau with 69,000 people in it
Trans-Manukau Link – Daytime
City Geometries
I had a comment on the geometry of the City so I am going to post a few pictures that help capture that:
Given Manurewa is under development at the moment I will have to get more Geometry pictures soon.
NOTE: DO NOT OPEN WITH MOBILE DEVICE OR ON MOBILE DATA. DESKTOP RECOMMENDED
The map I am playing to build Manukau on (this my first city with the Industries DLC) has a major transport weakness where there is no east-west connection between two sets of inter-city motorways along the coastal area. As a result and also how Manukau has developed a new east-west link was built and called the Trans-Manukau Link
The Link can be seen and annotated by the black arrows I quickly scribbled on:
Manukau with Trans-Manukau Link annotated
The link is either a 4 or 6-lane toll road that links one of two inter-city motorways and forms an expressway for freight and people to move across the coastal part of the city away from urban roads. It is not a motorway however there is no urban development flanking the Link. The Trans-Manukau links up several urban roads although it does not link with a separate 2-lane expressway that runs north-south from Manukau Shores through Wiri and Wiri East on its way to an inter-city motorway.
Free from urban clutter and an average speed limit of 70km/h going through multiple urban forms the Link has become a bit of a tourist trap for travellers either passing through or stopping Manukau for a holiday.
I have two sets of albums of the Trans-Manukau Link, one at night and the other in the day with a few aerial shots of the surrounding urban geography. This is done using the free camera mode that allows the camera to come down to first person level inside a City which is great for checking out all the nooks and hot spots a city has.
