Some 700 photos between March and now means I have been slacking off a bit with updates to my cities here.
I won’t share all 700 in this post as that is picture OVERLOAD for anyone. So over the next few posts I will be staging all the photos including data sets for Manukau while sharing the Urban Geography story through Cities Skylines.
In the run up to upgrading the City Centre
Manukau City Centre and Downtown have received upgrades over the last four weeks as well some urban expansion including a new technology park. In the run up to those photos lets take a look at where we are at the moment with game-style in Manukau.
Starting with the trams that run through the City Centre and Downtown of Manukau
Trams in Cities Skylines are particularly useful as they can move towards 300 passengers per rolling stock unit compared to my largest bus (a bendy bus) moving 135 passengers. Unlike heavy rail and Metro Rail trams are integrated into the urban area (no severance) and can blend other features like cycle ways. Trams are also quieter than monorails as well.
The main problem is they are at grade with the traffic and get caught at intersections causing congestion as seen below:
I am going to have to bite the bullet and replace the trams with monorail which takes the same road as trams but is elevates – so not fouled by intersections. Noise is easily mitigated mind you through trees and some rezoning (commercial loves monorail stations, residents don’t). Ah well onwards and upwards!
Buses
My workhorses of the transit fleet:
Buses I divided into three classes to make most of their flexibility:
Light: these are feeder busses running every 15-20mins either all day or in daylight hours. These as they say they do feed into larger transit lines and will seat between 30-70 people per bus. Bus priority not often used except near transit hubs
Standard: this is where the bus is the primary mover of people in a given area. The budget varies and allows frequencies between every 5 minutes in peak and 20mins off peak (night). Capacity ranges from 30 to 90 passengers per bus and bus lanes are seen on arterial roads
Metro: this is where the big bendy buses (130 passenger) ply their trade often on busways connecting different Districts within the City. Frequencies are every 3-5 minutes and bus lanes or bus ways are used along most of their route. Metro buses can also feed into Metro Rail where the Metro rail runs north-south and the Metro Bus will run east-west intersecting the metro-rail at a transit hub. If the Metro buses are constantly overloaded I will swap them out for Trams or Metro Rail (more often Metro Rail owing to their grade separation above or below ground)
Bus Hubs of various sizes are used depending on purpose with some also interconnected with trams and mono-rail stations as well. And as expected Transit Oriented Developments are utilised around the bus hubs or transit interchanges as well to get best utilisation.
Bus Lanes and Busways:
Cycleways and Pedestrian paths
Cycleways and pedestrian paths I tend to use to connect cul-de-sacs up to nearby main roads. However, when your City has a river or three running through them cycleways and pedestrian paths become good cheap sources of moving people from A to B without needing the car clogging the area. Paths can also included Shared Spaces (with cars) or Pedestrian Malls.
Some examples:
Of course separated cycle lanes and ordinary cycle lanes help too:
Big Data Mk1
Finally the data sets I use in both planning and evaluating decisions when working on the City. The data set is very rich and covers a wide range of topics including even individual transit lines as you are about to see:
Cities Skylines is a bit more than slapping down some roads and zones. To make the City function optimally you have to respond to happenings and plan for them as well. The data sets can help especially with transport, electricity, water and amenities – unless you want the City to lock up and the residents sick.
A final shot of Manukau in the prelude before we go over to how the City is currently and how it got there:
The latest DLC for Cities Skylines comes out on October 23 (October 24 for New Zealand and Australia – time zones) and it focuses on industry. It also focuses on toll roads too so what is this new DLC?
Let’s go to resident Cities Skylines player Biffa for a full breakdown of what the new DLC offers and how it will extend those Urban Geography skills:
I have currently paused San Solaria and San Layton cities as I wait for the DLC to come out and then for the respective mods to be updated. Given industry does play a large roll in my Cities Skylines cities it will be interesting to see how this new DLC will impact the existing cities and my Urban Geography skills with any new upcoming cities as well.
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
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).
The rule of thumb I usually follow with transit is this:
Busses for short distances and feeders into major interchanges
Light Rail for medium distances
Heavy Rail (and Metro Rail with Cities Skylines) for long distances or high capacity shuttling such as a major transport interchange and a stadium
In Cities Skylines I usually follow the above rules with a couple of exceptions. From time to time I will build a busway to allow busses to do medium distance running while light rail can be used for short distance running.
The Laytonville Busway
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But it is the LRT system I have set up that is of more interest as it gives lessons to Auckland as we try to set up an LRT system of our own.
This map shows the transit system in San Solarian City. The dash lines are the ferries, thick lines the Metro Lines and the thin lines are the trams:
As noted before I run both trans-city tram lines and tram lines that run within a single district (local loop running). Both classes of lines connect to each other either at a common station/stop or a slight over lap of the lines in some areas (two tram lines sharing the same bit of road/track) to allow transfers.
The question is why am I using trams for shot distance running? Answer One is capacity while answer two is ambience.
Busses are smelly, noisy and hold fewer passengers compared to the trams. Don’t get me wrong busses have their place including the biofuel bus but in a large City they just don’t cut the mustard when wanting to move people between areas (and between Metro Stations).
In high ambience areas like City Boulevard, the City Centre and Laytonville having lots of busses running around isn’t my idea of fostering ambience. This is why the trams are used in local loop running like City Boulevard Lines 1 and 2.
I can control budgets of individual lines so I can determine the capacity required:
So for the City Boulevard Lines trams that hold 75 passengers (still more than the biofuel bus (40)) are adequate while the Trans City Lines get the big 210 passenger trams.
City Centre – Thorton Hills LRT Line via City Boulevard
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Airport to City Centre via William and City Boulevards
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City Boulevard Line including Forrest Street
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Lessons for Auckland?
The Northern Airport Line will be Light Rail while I am pushing the Manukau to Airport section of the Southern Airport Line to be Light Rail (Manukau to Botany will be bus).
The first is about capacity to meet demand (The Southern Airport Line intersects Manukau Bus Station and Puhihui Train Station that have heavily patronised transit lines running through them) and the second is about ambience especially in a major Metropolitan Centre like Manukau.
Manukau or rather Transform Manukau is 600 hectares in size compared to the main City Centre being around 385ha (this does NOT include Port of Auckland but does include Wynyard Quarter). Manukau is also in the middle of a large regeneration program that includes intensification and upgrades of public spaces. Manukau is also forecast to house 20,000 new residents (I say it can hold double) over the next decade or so.
Simply put given its large size busses are not going to quite cut it moving people around Manukau nor to and from it to another major employment area like the Airport. Ambience is also in play and like the City Centre having a high amount busses inside Manukau doesn’t exactly work either.
Running higher capacity trams along the Northern Airport Line through the Airport and down to Manukau via the Southern Airport Line would be Auckland’s example of my Airport to City Centre LRT via William Boulevard Line coupled with the Airport to Laytonville Metro Line.
A LRT Line doing a circuit of Manukau and Manukau City Centre linking up the main commercial area, main residential area to the south, the events centre to the south-east and AUT to the north-east would be an example of my City Boulevard Lines.
Botany Sky Train Line Revised Manukau Loop
The Southern Airport Line is Option 1 (Red). Source: Auckland Transport
Remember via budget control you can use smaller trams (that can be coupled up to make larger units as I can in Cities Skylines (75, 150, 210 (same as the single unit E-class)) to start with and up the capacity as the demand allows.
I believe in the dig once, get it right policy that New Zealand struggles with (due to our often lack of foresight). While building LRT instead of a busway for the Southern Airport Line between Manukau and the Airport is more expensive those costs are paid off pretty quickly from the demand and ambience side.
Transform Manukau Framework Plan Source: Panuku Development Auckland
Transform Manukau Framework Plan Source: Panuku Development Auckland
Transform Manukau Framework Plan Source: Panuku Development Auckland
Transform Manukau Framework Plan Source: Panuku Development Auckland
Transform Manukau Framework Plan Source: Panuku Development Auckland
Transform Manukau Framework Plan Source: Panuku Development Auckland
Transform Manukau Framework Plan Source: Panuku Development Auckland
Remember the Southern Airport Line intersects the Southern and Eastern (heavy rail) Lines widening the catchment of that particular Airport Line. You also have the Manukau Bus Station that is THE PRIMARY bus and inter-city bus station for South Auckland (like Britomart is for wider Auckland). So the demand for trams will be there straight off the bat (even if we use smaller single car trams to start with that can be later connected up like our current electric trains). As for bus congestion not applying in Manukau? Well I do not want to get to that point unlike the City Centre and as I try to avoid in Cities Skylines (and when I don’t it is a mess to untangle).
Remember ambience is the name of the game and having busses trundle through Manukau is not my idea of ambience. Again LRT like my City Boulevard Lines are great for localised loop running to move people around an area – especially are large area that has many focal points like Manukau does inside its 600ha area.
Source: Panuku Development Auckland
Source: Panuku Development Auckland
Don’t forget that budget control measure for capacity.
Finally and again yes placing LRT down in Manukau is more expensive than bus rapid transit but once LRT is down you will not have to dig up the area again because the busses went over capacity (often too quickly).
Let’s get it right the first time every time!
San Solaria City has offered quite a few lessons for Auckland. I hope you have enjoyed this cross over with Talking Southern Auckland. I might do another cross over next year as San Solaria continues to evolve or when I start a new city on a new map.
The release of the Mass Transit DLC caused a few hiccups for my establish Cities in Cities Skylines. While I got San Solarian City fixed up quickly my flagship Layton City was more troublesome.
The problem was two-fold:
Old subway stations needed replacing
An array issue meant the game stalled
Replacing the subway stations (and for that matter having to redraw a heavy rail route) was slow but easier of the two tasks. The array issue (mechanics were beyond the capability of the simulation engine) was something else as the issue could only be “fixed” when the simulation pause. That said after some checking on the Forums it was a simple case of “CLEAR TRAFFIC” which clears the traffic off the roads and starts the simulation again from that point. Given it was a Saturday (industry is offline) it was easier to have the reset done.
And from there Layton City is working again and I am reminded I have to fix up the bus and tram routes cause it looks worse than Auckland right now…..
So here is some aerial shots of Layton City in the day and night:
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And the night shots:
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Good to have the City back. Not so fun going to sort the routes all out when the Transport Lines Manager is poked!
So you have built this wonderful large city but you wonder why your traffic is a bit shit in places.
72% traffic flow is not bad but not flash either given it sits in the ‘condition yellow’ segment. This means rather than a City-wide failure in your traffic (Auckland) there are more likely to be localised pinch-points causing a mess in nearby areas.
I know of three two of which are in industrial areas and one at Uptown which I am going to share today.
This is the intersection causing a bucket load of grief at Uptown:
Nice condition red at two major intersections meaning we have a jam.
This is what it looks like:
While there are bus lanes to move the busses the area gets jammed up due to a concentration of traffic going to and from the Great Solarian Coastal Motorway at the top of the picture.
So while I know the motorway is causing issues (surprise-surprise) I need to look to see where the traffic is going and where it coming from. Time to bring up the new Traffic Routes system that came with the Mass Transit DLC.
Public Transport includes taxis given taxis can use bus lanes as well unless you use Traffic Manager President Edition to ban taxis from the lanes.
You can see that cars and taxis are trying to access the motorway from Thompson Street which coincidentally is one of the main roads to the airport. Meanwhile busses do not access the motorway but rather are accessing Forrest Street which is a primary east-west transit corridor across the City (and recently included a new metro subway line).
Freight traffic also primarily is accessing the motorway from Thompson Street delivering goods to the Uptown leisure district (night clubs etc) and a major retail outlet near the airport.
Government service traffic (so garbage trucks etc) are using Thompson Street as an access point to the City Centre given refuse facilities are located an industrial complex also near the airport.
So what to do?
Well here is Thompson Street:
Thompson Street serves as a main arterial linking the Airport to the City Centre. While there is a north-south motorway nearby the route is indirect and is heavily utilised by traffic moving between the parallel east-west motorways that run through San Solaria (one runs along the coast and the other runs inland).
Consequently options come a bit limited but three do present themselves at ever escalating costs.
The first is to build a tunnel further back up Thompson Street and connecting directing to the eastbound onramp on the Great Solarian Coastal Highway allowing to-motorway traffic bypassing the Thompson/Forrest Street intersection. This however, does not solve the traffic entering Thompson Street from the motorway nor the overcrowding of busses along the route either.
This presents the next option of running a north-south metro line from the Airport to the Victoria Park Interchange in the City Centre. This relieves overcrowding on busses and gives a new north-south route along Thompson Street.
The third and most expensive option is a east-west metro line from Hill Park through Glade Hills out to Thorton Hills which also houses another major interchange. A cheaper issue is to run surface trams along the road bearing in mind there is a large roundabout along the way.
Another option is to open another lane from the motorway to the Thompson/Forrest Street intersection given west-bound traffic is either inter-city or from the large industrial complex to the east.
So what will I do?
Most likely open up that second lane to move the freight trucks through coupled with better signal phasing. This will be the short-term while I get a new north-south metro tunnel built connecting the airport to the City Centre to relieve the busses although that might get mega tricky at the City Centre end.
Already there is three Metro tunnels and a heavy rail tunnel in that area so some deep tunnelling might be needed. Or I could run elevated mono-rail 😛 .
With the new east-west link I might run it as trams given a metro line (elevated) is already in the area. As for a bypass tunnel to the motorway? Last resort.
Lot to think about but the new Traffic Routes Manager certainly helps.
If you have the Transport Line Manager Mod you are able to produce Metro-type transit maps of your City. At the moment it only covers Metro, heavy rail, tram and ferries but it looks pretty good for a product only in Alpha-testing.
I got a transit map set up for San Solarian City and this is what it looks like:
Please ignore one of the tram lines going off the map as it seems one of the tunnels is causing a glitch out. But you can see the Metro lines (medium thickness), the tram lines (thin lines) and the ferries (dashed lines). If I had heavy rail going you would see thick lines also on the map. Bus lines are at the moment not included and if they were I hope they would be allowed to be published separately to save clutter in a large city.
The PDF version above is set to A2 paper size and best zoomed at 400% to get a clear look. The file itself is under a megabyte in size so it wont cause your phone to do a Three Mile Island on you.
The above photo is roughly in line with the transit map so you can work out roughly how things are laid out.
As the city continues to expand so will the transit system. I will keep you posted on how it works out.
Seeing your Cities Skyline cities as “photographs” is one thing, seeing your city in Google Maps mode is something else.
Periodically I will run the Cimotographier mod that generates the maps for Layton City – both as an overview and close-up renders.
The overview render is the “low resolution” shot that you can load on a phone (1200 x 900) while the close up is 12,000 x 9,000 and would recommend for desktops only.
The Maps of Layton City:
Close up render. Warning: large size
One thing missing from the maps is the cycle boulevards that run extensively in the City. The mod for the maps needs to be updated to reflect the boulevards and where they are placed. Otherwise you would be able to see the extensive cycle network system in Layton City.
One of the mods (Cimtographer) allows you to “print” a, Open Street Map of your cities on Cities Skylines.
This is an overview of Layton City in map form:
One has to remember the City is still expanding so roads and rail lines that go to “nowhere” are there for when the City expands. This is because I follow an infrastructure surplus model rather than what Auckland does in following an infrastructure deficit model.
The infrastructure surplus model means I often have roads, rail lines and sometimes transit stations built ahead of the main urban development rather than following an urban development. Cities Skylines allows you to “deactivate” transit stations so they sit in idle mode (while still be maintained to a basic standard). As urban development reaches the area the transit stations are activated for use.
Yes it means the cims pays a little bit more in infrastructure running this surplus mode. But in the long run it actually saves money in building ahead rather than trying to catch up from deficit mode.
This is Layton City in map form but close up:
Note: Picture is 15mb and 15,000 x 13000 in resolution.
The maps do not show the cycle boulevard so if you see a gap with development around it that will be the cycle boulevard.
Least now you have a map to navigate around Layton City.
I will draw up dedicate transit maps some time into the future.
Ben's Cities 