Day 1 and already having to adjust bus frequencies
After some glitches with Twitch I finally got streaming and recording. In the stream I noticed a sea of people heading to a bus station even though it has just opened 5 hours earlier.
A highlight from today’s stream with PEOPLE USING TRANSIT – GO FIGURE:
Already I had to increase frequencies on one bus route and will be watching another carefully as it hits 85% occupancy utilisation. Also a summary of thoughts on urban geography and future streams (see: https://www.twitch.tv/palpatine001/ )
The full one hour video will be up Friday morning.
A concept I developed in Cities Skylines that I advocate for out in the real world is the Urban Islands. Urban Islands are where transport infrastructure, water or Green Belts break up the urban mass of a City giving an island effect. However, for Urban Islands to be Urban Islands one little feature needs to happen first – and that I explain in my first video here:
City Building and Urban Islands
In Part Two I zoom into the new Trade School then take a tour on a couple of the buses:
If you would like to know more about Urban Islands and other Urban Geography concepts I study and advocate for (including dual core cities) give me a yell in the comments below.
In the mean time Shop Safe!
Transport Line Manager in use
I realise in Part Two the Cities Skylines video was rather loud. I will make sure the volume is down on the next stream.
Urban Development in full flight in Grand Manukau/Layton Cities
After some path finding issues with the transit system and realising you can not start a Metro Line at a “deactivated” station (a station that has been built but not online to receive passengers) I got some good old fashioned urban development underway in Grand Manukau/Layton Cities.
The objective this week was two-fold:
Establishment of the Ore Industry
Continued residential expansion to support a City Centre and the new Industry
So the Ore Industry has been established and is functioning well while Parnell and Franklin District have both come on-stream.
At the moment I am in Expansion Mode – that is pretty much cookie-cutter standardised urban development through the Twin Cities and Urban Islands Urban Geography concepts. This is because the major infrastructure is already laid down from the earlier Planning and Building Mode thus all that is happening is existing infrastructure is simply being extended rather than adding entirely new Lines and so on. The other mode is Consolidation/Mature Mode where I have stopped expanding the City and am going through the existing urban area either upzoning or optimising the infrastructure for efficient operations.
Let’s Ride the Metro
So to start the videos off today we get to ride the newly expanded Metro Line 1:
Let’s ride Metro Line 1Transport Line Manager in use
Checking Out the Ore Industry
I built some Ore Industry – this is how it went:
Ore Industry – after a quick ride on the Metro
And finally a look at the new urban areas of Parnell and Franklin District. Also a final drop down to First Person mode to see the Downtown and LOTS OF TREES!
Bus lane woes, logistics and a new urban area
Next week we are traffic problem finding and bringing online another heavy rail line to help remove some of the road congestion. Also more urban expansion and the placement of the Lemonade Factory in time for Christmas!
After the issues with the Mods things got back on track. So here we are with this week’s stream a tad late – but it is here.
This week I focus on building the Downtown, the East End, and the first ever Metro line for Grand Manukau/Layton Cities. Layton City Downtown is a Tourist area while the East End is a Leisure area, which is controlled using the game’s District commands. As usual the first video is also of the Q+A from questions that come up from the previous week’s thread.
I must say the Metro Overhaul Mod gives beautiful renders. I used the Classic version rather than the Modern version for the Metro line. However, other Lines as they are built might be the modern version.
Next week we continue with City building as I continue to extend the East End and Watson Heights. I will also start laying the infrastructure down for the Ore Industry as well.
In today’s episode we look at how the data sets available in Cities Skylines and how they can be used to either fine tune a City or how it can be planned ahead.
Also included today is the Q+A session. If comments are left in the blog or YouTube videos about an episode I will do my best to answer them. This week’s Q+A looked at street design and an apparent focus on cars and buses.
Without further ado lets tuck into this week’s episodes:
Q+A – 20.10.2019
Using Big Data – Part 1
Using Big Data – Part 2: Using Data to fix a traffic problem (or did I make it worse)
Next week using the data sets I will continue expanding the Watson Heights Metropolitan Centre. Also MOAR HOUSING!
We run the infrastructure AHEAD of the developments – not behind
A Tweet about Melbourne failing Transit Orientated Developments annoyed me as I know Auckland is just as bad in doing such developments as well. This is why Japan it is normal and not a second thought is given in doing TOD’s as standard.
The point of the billions we spent on Regional Rail Link was supposed to mean we did PROPER TRANSIT-ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT in #Melbourne's West & not repeat mistakes we made locking outer east into car dependancy. Fix the suburban bus network NOW!https://t.co/eoQ3PDRRAw#springstpic.twitter.com/QrzR0lWFAv
Given I have one mature City and another just starting out I cranked open Cities Skylines and did a four part stream into Transit Orientated Developments and how they are done in the game.
Transit Orientated Developments and Cities Skylines
Part One
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4 – Wheels on the Bus Goes Round and Round as we travel down the extended metro bus route
Always fun in first person mode and I will stream some of the game in first person mode!
Even with game limitations around multi-use zoning and developments Transit Orientated Developments can still be done and demonstrated in game as seen above.
Full stream on Monday as I build an Ore industry site and watch the residential building finally get underway (darn weekends).
The initial tests have been done and the scripts are being written to keep the streams into 10 minute portions (for now). It is time to get the weekly Ben’s Cities(Skylines) Stream on the road (so to say) and out the door ready to be served every Monday.
The Ben’s Cities(Skylines) Stream
These streams will be starting off as short often two part streams commentating on all things urban simulation and urban geography using Cities Skylines as communication tool. From urban planning to urban development and onward to First Person mode (what the citizen sees) and Lane Mathematics this will both be causal but also formal as the game is used for downtime and urban geographic purposes.
Today I give a very brief overview of the game, the layout and the mods I use. From next Monday I will do both urban development and drop down to first person view so you see the world from a Cim’s perspective. At the moment both Manukau, and Grand Manukau/Layton Cities will be used in the streams. One is an older mature city the other one I recently started.
As always don’t forget to subscribe, like, share and leave a comment below. \
