Great video Lee. It really does feel like the "if all you have is nails, every solution looks like a hammer" with traffic solutions in the community. Lots of praise and attention for very elaborate highway junctions, very little discussion of efficiency in design.
Thank you, and I agree. I have more coming that flies in the face of conventional traffic wisdom coming in Part 8. I’m hoping this gets people to see some different possibilities!
@@bassegovia4706 I have rough cuts (they show the gameplay but lack music/titles/cinematics) of Parts 7-9 on Patreon, and I should have a final cut on these in the coming weeks. I'm working on a script for Part 10 as well. I'm getting excited about getting them out there as well!
@@LeeHawkinsPhoto great to hear! Thanks to your help I’ve got my first city with over 10k cims and sitting pretty with over $1,000,000 in the bank. My cities have never done so well!
Interesting video. You're correct in that roundabouts and fancy junctions are all well and good for fixing an already built, traffic filled city... but actually designing the city correctly in the first place is much better. Then you turn off despawning and see how badly you did anyway 🤣
@@valmeida6846 don’t get me wrong-roundabouts are great, and I’m a big fan! I just don’t like the old fashioned kind that the US Federal Highway Administration calls a “traffic circle”, and the complexity of building a modern roundabout, even with mods, makes them impractical most of the time. It’s a shame CO never made modern roundabouts easier to build in small footprints, because there are times when they are the only effective means of handling an intersection.
@@LeeHawkinsPhoto yes, we have a big double traffic circle on an 8 way junction in my city of Colombo. Thats the place I hate the most here in terms of roadway
Disable despawning at day-one and only click it on if you encounter a severe problem that needs to be resolved. Forces you to get it more-or-less right the first time and fix small problems as you go.
Hi Lee. When are you continuing this series? I think I speak for many when I say how enjoyable and informative this series has been. Not to mention the awesome street layout you have created. Thanks Lee, for all your Cities: Skylines videos.
There are a few RU-vidrs I watch for CS, but you are the only one I have seen who intelligently studies all facets of the game and applies that knowledge. As a person who likes to learn and think carefully about everything, I really appreciate the thoroughness and thoughtfulness of your ideas.
Something which I've been trying and that's worked fairly well for me is somewhat emulating European mixed zoning. Putting low density shops mixed in with your residential greatly reduces the traffic from residential>commercial since anyone can just walk or cycle to the shops unless they specifically need to go to high density commercial (which I tend to like to put in areas with strong public transport links). I've found doing this along with using tons of cycling infrastructure basically makes traffic a complete non-issue as long as your public transport makes sense.
I've been playing Cities Skylines for about two years now, but i always abandon my cities because they don't feel natural. Someone recomended your channel on Reddit and i'm amazed by how beaultiful and planned your cities look. I've binge watching all of your series and learning your tips. Hope you can continue with the incredible work, you're amazing!
What I have discovered after starting several cities is exactly what is presented in this video as far as Road Layout + Good Zoning = smoother traffic. I use to use a lot of roundabouts, which, in my opinion do well in moderate to light traffic, but have moved to timed traffic lights for heavier traffic along with lane math (including good lane counts for lanes that have the heavier traffic) & lane management. Between tips from Yumbl, Biffa, & Lee here, my latest city is 50,000 with the equivalent of 3 areas left to unlock & fill & have 0 backups with an average rating of 75% traffic. Yes, I have some red, but that's only due to heavy traffic, not actual traffic issues causing backups.
Somehow, a year or so after this is published, it shows up on my RU-vid feed. I have watched a lot of CS content creators but your style and play along tutorial has been super helpful. I even went through and built the city with you throughout the episodes... But then when I'm most excited to see how you expand, the series is over? Any word on if you'll come back to this series? Either way, it's been so much fun watching. Thank you!
I had a lot of things unravel on me in 2021 and it’s taken me a lot to get back to producing videos again. I’m starting to get back into them now, and I have most of Part 7 and half of Part 8 done, and Part 9 is planned. This series in particular takes a lot of effort to produce and I just haven’t had the energy to devote to it for a while…so more is coming! Hold tight!
@@LeeHawkinsPhoto Awesome! So glad to hear you're getting back in the swing of things. I am excited to see how your city progresses compared to how I built from the stub city you started. I'm up to 4k citizens in Settlegeti now!
@@LeeHawkinsPhoto Please do continue the series…..it might just be the ultimate CS guide…..I’ve seen a million videos and no one explains all the mechanisms as clearly and technically as you do!!
Hey Lee, I really enjoyed this series so far - so well explained (+ II liked the sci-fi references) and nice length videos on each subject. But I'm also a bit amazed at this layout so I'm super eager to see it work when you scale it up! Hope you continue it soon!
I'm so happy you've enjoyed these! And I've been working on the next 3 episodes! Hopefully will drop a new episode this month or next! Those take a lot of time to plan and produce, and until recently I have just not been able to focus on them mentally. Should be able to get these back into regular production soon 😎
@@LeeHawkinsPhoto Love these videos. I'm almost 500 hours in Cities Skylines on Steam and you gave me a lot of food for thought! Subscribing and hitting the bell for the next episode!
Finally!! I’ve been waiting impatiently for this series to continue, I even forgot about it and then I saw this on my timeline..... that joy feeling kicked in 😂 the information about traffic it’s amazing! Can’t for the next episode!! 😎
I like this series. Not many people design cities with the 19th century design in place and it just looks so much more realistic with it. I always have a hard time trying to expand my city in a realistic way. I can never really decide where that first street should go.
Thank you SO much for this. Traffic is one of the things I struggled with the most (I usually built cities with huge amounts of bicycle lanes, which helped significantly but may not have addressed the root issue), especially when trying to massively scale up cities in order to fulfill the obscure requirements for unlocking special buildings. This was a tremendous help, and I very much appreciate it, especially when (as you've said) a lot of the help I've seen has focused more on fancy and increasingly ugly highway implements when I'm trying to figure out how to keep my highway traffic from cramming down one tiny off-ramp just to get to a specific industrial district. Thanks so much.
Great! I’m so glad you benefitted! I struggled so hard when I started because SimCity always let you skate a lot easier on these things, and CS just DOES NOT! Zoning is really the key. It’ll make your life so much easier armed with this knowledge 😁
This was an amazing series and was ready to binge more, sad to see it stopped after this one. Any plans to pick this series up again? I learned so much!
Love the city's name! "Settelaghi" is the zone where i come from here in Italy (Lombardy region), because in italian it literally means "seven lakes", and there are 7 lakes!
Not sure if you will read this or not Lee but I would love to see the rest of this series go on. I love the start so far. And yes I recently discovered you. Even downloaded the starter map to join in.
Glad to hear it, just finished the last part my self so far I am loving the city. Also started all the road layouts as well hoping you would continue this series. This is greatly improving my way of playing the game and giving me back a lot of fun.
I’ll never stop being terrified when I see cars going the wrong way around an island! 🏴 Love these videos! You’ve stopped me playing with infinite money cuz I actually understand the game now!! Thank you!
@@GATORORANGEGUY yes! It’s not on YT yet, but there’s a rough cut up on my Patreon for those with the Studio pass. Part 8 is written, just not recorded yet.
This is a fantastic series, I am now returning to the game after a VERY long time and have purchased all the remaining available dlcs in the Sale. Unfortunately, this is the last video in the playlist, I am hoping you uploading more episodes to cover the upcoming topics mentioned, if not, I thank you for the advice given to this point and shall see how I get on with my own city.
@@LeeHawkinsPhoto Still waiting man, we hope everything is okay with you, and we hope to see you posting soon enough, tons of love from across the game ^^
@@shadyhamam should see something new next week…episode of Reddington is finished…once I get the next one done too, I’ll be announcing the premiere date 👀
lol "Cities Skylines isn't a perfect representation of real life. They often die while out shopping, but almost never at work or in a hospital." lmao! You are so funny.
I feel like i've just attended official training. I like your style - i usually fall asleep to CS videos. I could have done with this video a few years ago. Thank you
You never really get over grief...you just learn to live with it. I really needed to be there for the family a lot more. They’re doing much better now, but it’s still gonna be tough for a long time.
Thank you for calling out that fancy roundabouts aren't needed at the start of the game. I'm still a relative newbie and when i watch some of the other CS players on youtube, they start their cities with such elaborate setups that it feels like the city will collapse without them. Looking forward to your next video. Saw in the comments that you had a rough winter, glad you're doing better now.
It was my pleasure! It just bugs me that the road layout/traffic advice out there flat out ignores land use/zoning, but treats the fancy stuff (especially highways!) like it’s necessary when it’s totally overkill and actually makes traffic a TON more difficult than it needs to be as the city grows. Part 8 will totally explode road hierarchy...I cannot wait to see what people think about that! And I appreciate your concern. We’re moving along much better now, but you never fully recover from losing someone important...you just learn to deal a little better.
@@beepbop6542 😁 I can’t wait for that episode to come out! I had hoped I’d have it ready for May, but this was a crazy month...June looks crazy too, but I think I’ll get caught up to MMLT again 😊
I've found your series just recently. Must admit that so far I've been great fan of totally different approach to city planing. I've watched several creators, like Imperial Jedi or City Planner Plays, just to name them. While they did great work and I totally appreciate their ideas I feel that You seem to be delivering better idea how to handle the city. I haven't played CS for a while but intend or getting back to this game. My last approach ended with city around 65k citizens, a lot of money, relatively good traffic (if I recall well it was 80%+, but I may remember it wrong) but... I couldn't expand it any more since all my traffic solutions were already paper-thin and there was no real potential to move forward. I also had some problems with mods, which resulted in abandoning my city. I'm looking for better ideas, and You seem to be delivering them. I really hope that You will publish next parts soon. I do understand that it involves a lot of time, since You are preparing a strong background (history, math ect) - full respect. Most probably I will wait with my next approach to CS until You bring more of content, since I already feel that this is something that I was missing before.
Hey, so glad that my videos are helpful! I have more installments of this series in the works, I’m hoping to get something done soon. I started making videos because it seemed nobody was tackling the problems I thought needed addressed…still seems that way. I’m always happy when someone else sees what I’m doing 😁👍🏻
@@LeeHawkinsPhoto Yeah, I also feel that we need different approach to those things. Typically, in real life, the better roads you have and the more roads you have, the more cars are delivered to those roads. Whenever people see that traveling by own car is super conveniant they just do it - as a result every member of family has his car, and they just dont consider using public transport or even optimising routes so that they could travel together. In CS we just spam roads, highways, create state-of-art junctions ect instead of reducing need to travel. I really want to see how your ideas end, but even now I'm changing my policy and trying to spend more time on zoning and smart distribution of buildings, instead of just building more roads. I like this challenge, really, you made me want to play this game again ;-)
Great topic! I see too many references to Biffa's traffic mitigations tips, and not nearly enough to things like this about why there's so much traffic in the first place because of where the buildings are.
That’s part of why I made this and included that rant...Biffa’s tips and many of the others are good ideas most of the time, but there are times they can actually make things worse...which is what I will show in Part 8 😁 I cannot wait for that one!
Hey! i just started watching your channel. Awesome video! Not only do you explain how zoning is a major contributor to traffic and how important it is planning but you also give a history lesson on how historic cities developed. Thank you Lee!
I don't know why this guy doesn't have more views. I just found this and I'm enjoying the explanations. It's descriptive and it's not "Do this. And boom."
Late to the party here, but I'm curious why you didn't consider asymmetrical stop signs which would allow the heaviest traffic routes to proceed uninterrupted; essentially treating the turning traffic the same as through traffic on a priority road: ~ Broadway & Market: Stop signs from the east and south only ~ Broadway & Fourth : Stop signs from north and west only
I don’t really like to do it that way because IRL this can be a scary configuration, plus if I let the main routes go uninterrupted, it makes it extremely hard for the less traveled routes to get through the intersection. So it’s really just fine IMO to hold things up a bit to make sure everyone gets through and nobody gets stuck forever.
Man, your analytical explanations are a treat of both clarity and entertaining value. You deserve an elegant bow tie for this series (and you get a new sub !)
“…we’re modeling our city on 19th century American cities” ok I understand why, as a teaching tool, this makes sense. And, the game is / was maybe developed with that in mind (but maybe not), so yeah, these models will “work” in the game. I just hope that some day you can make a video about the “ideal” Cities Skylines city, or on… 22nd century American cities!
This is an interesting question! And one I could definitely make a video about. But in all sincerity...I really feel like we've gone backwards in developing cities in real life, thanks to the automobile. A lot of damage has been done to excellent urban environments, and a lot of completely untenable suburban environments have been built purely around cars. But as far as "ideal" Cities: Skylines cities go...I don't think there's a right or wrong way to do it. You can build a walkable utopia or an automotive utopia and make either one work. I think it's a lot easier to build a walkable city than a cartopia though, and that's what I'm promoting in this video. Sometimes the old ways were right all along and the technology gets in the way. I feel like that is very true with cars. They're useful, but we have probably become too reliant on them as a society--at least in North America.
Hi Lee - This video is absolutely excellent ! I learned more from this than most other youtube vids I have ever watched on Cities Skylines! I feel like I understand the game so much more after seeing this one! I will watch more of your vids on CS as well !! Thanks for explaining it so well !!
Dude why did you stop the series?!? I just found it and for the first time someone is explaining the technical reasons and colossal order’s reasoning behind how the game works! Man I really need to see how you scale the city and introduce highways
I stopped the series because my life stopped a year and a half ago when my mother-in-law got covid and died 😞 I'm just now starting to emerge from the creative rut and get going again. I will definitely continue this, so hold on! It's coming...but not until probably September at earliest.
Great video and this series is phenomenal! Really hoping to see more of this town growth as I really enjoyed following along and building with you. Any updates on when it might be continuing? Keep up the great work!
@@LeeHawkinsPhoto I wish I had found your channel when I was new too I’ve got over 1000 hours but there’s always more to learn and more nuance to uncover. Just like with real city planning!
You should have put something like this in the video title: inapropriatte for begginners or only for Cities Skylines geeks. Don't get me wrong, I personally liked the video because this is A LOT of good info on how to reduce even further traffic. But new players will find it boring and won't see it to the end (well, let's hope I'm completly wrong on this). Anyways, you developed a lot on the concept of zoning traffic theme which is cool since many people doing tutorials often do not mention. The only thing I would suggest is that maybe further in the series you need to come back to this subject with the introducing of new zone types.
For sure I’ll be back...and this series is more of a deep dive, not just a highlight reel. I have more videos coming soon with traffic tips that will be the condensed version of these, but I want to have the depth put together first so I can point people back to these. I really don’t think it’s true that this video isn’t for beginners and is only for geeks though. I think it’s important for everyone who plays with the simulation running (who doesn’t just use the game as a diorama and doesn’t really care about traffic) to understand where cims make trips and how they can design for that. I haven’t seen people make those videos at all so far, and they all get WAY more geeky on the intersections and road hierarchy-rezoning is more effective than just about anything else is to fix traffic. The roads matter, but making things walkable makes a lot bigger difference.
@@LeeHawkinsPhoto don't get me wrong because I'm coming for your videos although I'm an experienced player. I think we should always go for other players to get new ideas/designs for our own cities and there's also something that other people know that we don't. That's why I keep watching your videos because I can see you've done the research for it. Keep up the good job.
So much information, so little time. I have to subscribe just so I can watch again. Binge watched this series from the start episode. My brain has a love/hate with the maths. I love the detail but I suck at maths.
I’ve always liked math, but I know lots of people don’t. I try to emphasize the benefits and keep things as simple as possible so people see why they might want to bother. I feel like they teach math wrong (or at least they did when I was a kid in the US) because it’s all numbers and almost zero application until you get into something physics or engineering or navigation related...and then you wish you would have paid attention in algebra class. I always thought they should show you the problem and then explain the math to solve it. I think people would struggle with it a lot less if they had the motivation to make the effort. Like don’t teach how to find the mean or median of a bunch of random numbers, use a play by play from a football game and figure out which running back broke loose more often and which was more consistent. Idk...anything to make the numbers _meaningful!_
@@LeeHawkinsPhoto the only person who could make maths make sense to me was my younger sister. Unfortunately my brain decided early I was too stupid for such things 😔 and I never really recovered from it. I know I can do maths but my brains default reaction is 'too hard, I'm out.'
that is basically the main concept in every sim city ever since 30 years. highest population numbers requires a way to reduce traffic or your city either goes bankrupt for public transportation costs or fails because all roads are blocked or both.
One thing is, Don’t have just one way in. That means your channeling all this traffic on to this one road and then once cims enter the city it makes this mess of the main road becomes extremely congested. Then all the off roads become slightly congested then all those off roads are kinda ok and on that pattern goes.
@@LeeHawkinsPhoto oh my God! I'm really sorry to hear that! I really enjoyed the content so far! Take the time. That really needs to heal. My condolences!
I can't wait until the next video! I feel like I can't progress any further with this one coz I might break it! Off to make a new city and test what I've learnt while I wait for the next instalment....... also, I hit that Subscriiiiiiiiiibe LOL
I definitely don’t mean as it a jab to anyone in particular. Phil (CPP) is a friend, so he actually saw this video days before it premiered on RU-vid. Road hierarchy works...if it’s done right...but most inexperienced players don’t understand how to implement it, so a grid is way easier for them to start. The same is true for Biffa’s advice...what he does definitely works, but it’s not as easy for a new player to wrap their head around. More than anything I say what I say because roundabouts and road hierarchy are the conventional wisdom in ALL forums discussing Cities: Skylines (Reddit, Steam, etc.). And yet I’ve lost count of how many people this advice did not work for...so that’s why I say it like this. I think it’s good to learn other ways of doing things, but I think it’s more important to enjoy the game by being able to build a big city first-and the easiest most sure way to do that is just to use a grid. That’s all I’m saying.
@@LeeHawkinsPhoto and when you say conventional wisdom, Phil and biffa and czardus are the only C:S RU-vidrs i watch on a regular basis, so their videos are the conventional wisdom for me 😁
@@alienamzal477 well I suppose they’re part of that...but you’ll notice that Czardus and CPP use grids much more often...and to their benefit! When I started putting my vids out, I got endless comments and complaints about how it was “just a grid”. But grids are simple! And they are a lot easier for newer players to deal with. Zoning in my mind is WAY more important than road hierarchy, roundabouts, or highways...and it’s the thing I see new players hit snags on most. And it’s all good 👍🏻
Lee, just curious if you’ll be making an episode 7-8 in this series? Would love to watch the city grow and expand and see how you’re going to start the public transit for the city.
It’s in the works. I had a pretty close family member die in 2021 and that’s set things back much worse than I expected. We’re still not quite functioning like before...
13:38 Nitpick: Current FHWA definitions make a "roundabout" and "traffic circle" distinct things. The primary distinction is that in a roundabout the traffic *on* the circular roadway is uncontrolled and has priority, whereas on traffic circles there are commonly lights that stop the circulating traffic.
I totally expected this nitpick, which is why I distinguished the first roundabout from a modern roundabout. You’re absolutely right that most regions of the US have a different term for a roundabout that isn’t a modern roundabout-often they’re called rotaries in the Northeast, and here in Ohio we call them traffic circles. But there are actually tons of little things besides just traffic controls that distinguish a modern roundabout from these old traffic circles. However, in Europe the term “roundabout” encompasses just about any circular roadway, so that’s why I distinguish using the term _modern roundabout_ instead of roundabout vs. traffic circle...the game has a very international audience.
@@LeeHawkinsPhoto I'm glad I stumbled across this! I'll be watching more of your videos. You know I'm always appalled that twentieth century North American suburbs generate a $#!+ton of traffic when compared to traditional New England cities and towns that are just as dense if not more dense. It all comes down to zoning. Now on to roundabouts. New England (again) particularly Massachusetts got a handle on its rotaries fairly early on when it eased the entry into and exit out of the circle with curves, and required traffic entering the rotary to yield to traffic inside the rotary. The yield control I think is the one move that makes this type of intersection function so much smoothly than four way stop signs and traffic lights. Which leaves me scratching my head why New Jersey never universally adopted this rule but instead signallised or got rid of most of its traffic circles.
It didn't end, my life got complicated from the pandemic and it's taken me this long to get new episodes together. I have 3-4 in the works now. A new one will drop in the coming days/weeks.
I much prefer putting in a spot of commercial here and there then putting it all in one area, or along one or a set of roads; I think of it like how parks have to be evenly distributed to have effective coverage (like in a lot of European countries, which they would do that more here, tbh..)
How would you go about office zoning? Considering it doesn't add heavy traffic. Would you recommend zoning it similar to comercial or do you have any other guidelines/tips?
Great question! I didn't address that in this video much, but the short answer is that I usually intersperse it to buffer between high density commercial and residential, and between industrial and residential. Office zones tolerate ground and noise pollution much better than residential ever will, and it provides jobs without ratcheting up the traffic since it's within walking distance of the main roads that usually have transit and within walking distance of so much residential. So it's a win-win-win! I'll have more on that though as we upzone the city!
12:50 At this intersection of Broadway and Market street, I would set up the stop signs such that the main volume of traffic can go through - in both directions. I.e. stop signs would be on market street from south, and on broadway from east. I think this might work here better than a 4-way stop? (In Germany those kinds of intersections are common, though more often with yield signs instead of stop signs - those are reserved for more dangerous situations.)
If it were just 2 stop/yield signs, traffic would have to wait forever for the major road to be clear. A 4-way stop is slightly better, in that it requires vehicles to give way to only one other vehicle after which they can proceed. In other words, each road takes turns going.
Roundabouts are often nice, but even with mods they get "unrealistic" in Cities Skylines. Usually you have to make them way bigger than they would realistically be, and the traffic flow sometimes isn't easy to set up correctly. That being said, they are not the greatest solution in real life either. Close to where I live there is a roundabout that becomes a pain during rush hour. (So much so that I avoid driving there at those times). The big problem is that most of the traffic comes from the highway, and wants to cross to the left, with very less traffic coming FROM the left and wanting to go towards the high way. That causes that one direction to clog up the roundabout making it more difficult for the other two roads to enter. I see this issue in Cities sometimes too, usually if your roundabouts are too small. (Which technically is a solution in real life too, just not an easy one) In such situations I think a well timed traffic light would work better.
I always draw the roundabouts in Cities: Skylines by hand (with curved streets), making them much smaller, and it works fine for me, just like real roundabouts in Europe.
I have more in the pipeline...2021 has been a brutal year for me personally, so that’s really gummed up production of the rest of the series. I’m hoping to get it back on track in the coming month or two.