Cities Skylines and Traffic
I literally love how every DLC that gets announced for Cities Skylines there is always the same hate and flack “FUCK THIS FIX THE TRAFFIC ARRGH!!!1!!”.
Even though they have said... what? over a 100 times now? That there isn’t anything wrong with the Traffic AI, it works as intended. Works how they want it to work. How it needs to work.
The problems people often describe aren’t flaws in the AI code, they’re flaws in way the player has set up their roads.
If you build a city with a shit ton of intersections, no roundabout’s, limited/poorly funded public transport and don’t space out and properly plan your districts, you’re going to get bitch slapped by the tsunami of traffic it generates.
One of the easiest ways to deal with traffic is to start your city with an elevated express way, starting with normal roads and upgrading to one way highway types. By using these with connecting roads you can improve traffic flow through the city.
Ban heavy traffic from certain districts to encourage the use of the express ways, bypasses and road tunnels.Â
Use monorails to connect population hubs with major services to avoid the need for cars. Use pathways and bike roads to connect blocks and use them as overpasses so your citizens can walk to nearby places rather than drive.
Use busses for connecting districts within proximity of each other and subways for more distant districts. If you set up a system that has lines like how New York or London’s subway systems work you can dramatically decrease traffic.
Don’t spam those god forsaken intersections. These become bottlenecks and cause a lot of traffic issues. Use the congestion/traffic overlay to see which roads are struggling and upgrade them if you need to.
With industrial zones, use one way roads to streamline the traffic.
Don’t spam services. Just make sure existing ones are built in areas where they can help the most people and be accessed by public transport or by foot and that they’re nicely funded.
After watching the Mass Transit play through by ConflictedNerd, It helped me fix a shed load of issues I was having with my traffic. So far his concepts have yet to fail me.
So instead of complaining about the AI and blaming your woes on it and the Dev’s, be happy they’re still making content for it to keep the game fresh and alive with new policies, assets, scenarios, services etc. And proceed to get excited that they low-key hinted there may be a Cyberpunk/Futuristic DLC in the future.