Building our First-Ever Cycle Super Highway in #CitiesSkylines (and taking a Tour)

Took five years but here I am!

I have played Cities Skylines for long as it has been out – 5 years. Yet while perfecting transit and freight transportation options my active modes planning was no more than painted cycle lanes, the odd separated cycle lane next to trams or disjointed cycle-ways over a motorway.

Well that changed this month with the construction of the first ever Cycle Super Highway in Valhalla City! Following one of the two smaller rivers that run through Valhalla the Cycle Super Highway connects the Airport to the City Centre. The Super Highway also has branches coming off it connecting the different suburbs and towns on the trip to the City Centre itself.

Here is me building the Valhalla City – Airport Cycle Super Highway:

There might be no commentary from me in this clip as I had the mic off and forgot it was off.

But you can see the cycle-way follow a very scenic trip to the City Centre!

Here is a tour of the Cycle Super Highway as well:

I am aware the video might be choppy as Streamlabs does not like First Person very much…..

Not to worry once Sunset Harbour DLC comes out later this week and the Mods are fixed we will be straight back into Valhalla City building even MORE cycle super highways across the City!

You can find me on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/palpatine001

ALL ABOARD. Light Rail Moving You Around. Lessons for Auckland

Part Four – Moving Through the New Urban Form

In Lessons for Auckland Ctd – Proof is in the Pudding: From Motorway to a Place People Love. #CitiesSkylines we see how the urban form established itself from what was a motorway to a new urban area mixed with residential and commerce.

The question is how to move everyone around this new area and how do we connect it to the existing urban area and its transit networks.

It would be a waste to fill the area up with cars and have those cars ruin the ambience of the area. Grade separated cycling lanes are available for shorter distance and I didn’t exactly wanted to put smelly diesel busses down the area either. Enter the trams or light rail system.

Four new tram lines were built with two connecting to the wider city and two travelling within the area forming a City Link type circuit. The photos below are of City Boulevard Lines 1 and two that run as a loop down the new Boulevard and through Forrest Road (one of the two east-west parallel roads). The other two lines that were later built are:

City Centre to Airport LRT Line. Think of it as Solaria’s City Centre to Airport via Dominion Road, Auckland equivalent with the Airport-Solarian Line (a metro/subway line) as the express Southern Airport Line).
Thorton Hills Interchange – City Boulevard Line. This links up the new urban area to a major interchange that serves busses and an inter-city train station

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Lessons for Auckland?

Do not be afraid of Light Rail and also Light Rail is good for small intra suburb running as well as big trans-city running like Airport Lines.

Two of the four new tram lines are intra-suburb running – meaning the line runs within a single district rather than multiple districts. I can control individual line budgets meaning I can select capacity ranges from 75 to 210 passengers. As a comparison a bio-fuel bus holds 40 passengers while the bendy busses hold 130 and let off a pile of diesel fumes along the way. So rather clogging my nice new urban area up with smelly busses I can use smaller trams to move passengers around while stepping up capacity as demand increases.

Manukau City Centre and Manukau/Wiri would be a perfect example of such a Light Rail scheme that connects into a larger LRT scheme like the Southern Airport Line (Manukau to the Airport via Puhinui Station) or in Cities Skylines the two City Boulevard Lines connecting into the bigger trans-city lines.

The two bigger lines being the Thorton Interchange to City Centre Line and the Airport to City Centre LRT Line both which run through part of the City Boulevard Lines.

Airport and NW Lines Source: AKL Urban Design via Twitter Note: Not final for statioms

In this case these two bigger lines run through multiple districts and centres so using the big E-class tram that holds 210 passengers will be more viable (remember my biggest bus is only 130 passengers).

In the end there is no point building a nice new urban area for it only to be throttled by busses and cars. Local and inter-district routes need careful mapping out and in this case the trams were the ones that cut the mustard rather than the bus.

Also who would want their new government, shopping and residential district backed up with cars? No thanks!

#CitiesSkylines Goes Green

EV Cars and Green options to be on offer

It has been a while since I have been on Cities Skylines as I was in the middle of a research project while now I am testing my mettle on Transport Fever (21st Century version of Transport Tycoon).

I will get back to my cities soon enough but it seems in the meantime Cities Skylines is about to go green:

Cities Skylines – Green Cities Announced Today at Gamescom

Published: August 23, 2017 1:00:00 AM GMT+1200

STOCKHOLM – Aug. 22, 2017 – Paradox Interactive and Colossal Order are preparing to make players green with envy in Green Cities, a new expansion for their evergreen city-builder Cities: Skylines. Coming later this year, Green Cities will allow mayors to make sustainable cities, complete with organic stores, electric vehicles, and new services designed to make pollution a quaint notion of the past. Green Cities will arrive for $12.99 via low-carbon-footprint digital delivery for Windows, MacOS, and Linux PCs later this year.

Cities: Skylines – Green Cities adds 350 new assets to the core game, adding a massive selection of new visual options, complete with eco-friendly buildings, organic stores, electric vehicles, and new services designed to make pollution a quaint notion of the past. Players can create more diversified cities, or go completely green as the urban population grows. New in-game services and buildings arrive alongside revisions to noise and environmental pollution, making the skies safer for Chirper at last.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, with exciting new features such as: Story to Story, Building to Building, Street to Street: New Eco-Friendly Buildings, New specialization buildings, new alternative service buildings, new unique buildings, electric cars, new parks — 350 new assets in all giving a unique new look to Cities: Skylines I Wish I Was Special, You’re So Very Special: New specialized options for all city zones, plus leveled-up specializations for the first time in Cities: Skylines So What So What So What’s the Scenario: New scenarios, new policy options, and a new Monument to make your friends Green with envy Why Do Birds Suddenly Appear More Stylish: Of course we’ve included a flower-crown hat for Chirper.

As always, the expansion will be accompanied by a free content update to the base game, which will include electric cars, road modding, changes to noise pollution, and more beautification options in the form of parks and trees, among other things.

For more information on Cities: Skylines, please visit https://www.paradoxplaza.com/cities-skylines.

……

Source: https://www.paradoxplaza.com/news?aid=Cities-Skylines-Green-Cities-Announced

Here is the teaser:

Should be interesting

The Layton City Cycle Super Highway #CitiesSkylines

Biking is king in Layton City

One thing I am trying with Layton City is to make the city an 8-80 City. That is a city that is safe to navigate by both eight and eighty year old citizens as well as amenities suited for them. That is if your city is safe and enjoyable for young and old then it is a safe and enjoyable city for ALL citizens.

Using the Rush Hour, Network Extensions and various public transport mods I am able to tap into things like

Cycle Boulevards
Pedestrian Roads
Lane ways (part of Snowfall)
Individual line control for the mass transit lines

In this case I was more focusing on the first three listed above as the urban expansion was inside the existing developed Districts (meaning expanding within a district area rather than expanding over and creating a new district and having to fine tune the transit lines). With the expansion within Garnet Hills and Beech District I focused more on the active transport modes.

This meant the expansion of the Layton City Cycle Super Highway that spans from the City Centre all the way down to Foggy Heights where the City was founded. The cycle super highway allows cyclists to bike on mostly grade separated infrastructure through the eastern flank of the city. Through time other cycle super highways will be built as the City expands westwards.

At the same time while using lane ways for non arterial roads within urban areas I am also using the pedestrian road more as well. The pedestrian road is the same as a lane-way but no cars are allowed on it (service vehicles may travel on them however) allowing for different dynamics in both low and high density areas. The pedestrian roads basically extend the front yard of a residential home or trading area of a commercial facility.

The three types of active transport friendly infrastructure modes:

Cycle boulevard

Lane way

Pedestrian Road

The time I took the collection of pictures it was a Saturday in the game so a lot of people about with it being the weekend. The cycle super highway was especially busy through the length of the route as people join and leave it as they move about the City.

I also “travelled” by bike along the super highway and the trip would be very enjoyable if translated into real life. The Layton Cycle Super Highway runs through or near various bus lines with feeder cycle lanes or boulevards connecting from the super highway to the subway or heavy rail system. So if I were to wager you wouldn’t need a car to get around most of Layton City. Even the parts of the industrial areas are serviced by busses widening the net unlike Auckland for the most part.

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The World’s Most Liveable City? I think that belongs to Layton City rather than Auckland given the ease to move around the Layton City by mass or active transit modes.