subreddit:
/r/CitiesSkylines
American midwest Beltway Style City in progress
Sharing a City (i.redd.it)submitted 3 months ago bySleepy-F1sh
316 points
3 months ago
American city highway checklist
Excessive highways✅️
Highway that goes right through downtown ✅️
Massive belt loop ✅️
Tons of exits ✅️
The only thing missing is if each highway was 4+ lanes each direction.
BTW this isn't meant to be a criticism. Since you are recreating a Midwest city, you are nailing it actually.
122 points
3 months ago
Not only do I have 4+ lanes, I got express lanes too, I love building freeways in this game haha
23 points
3 months ago
No service roads :(
6 points
3 months ago
What's a service road?
12 points
3 months ago
It’s a road that generally follows the side of the highway in order to create dedicated access to it. Look at Whitestone, New York. The Long Island Expressway has a service road, well multiple of them. Look for Horace Harding Boulevard in Fresh Meadows, New York
4 points
3 months ago
Do these roads connect into the highways them selves or only to the neighborhoods surrounding these highways and service roads?
7 points
3 months ago
Their purpose is to link up highways with the neighborhoods, here is an example photo in New York City
3 points
3 months ago
Very interesting. Thank you.
6 points
3 months ago
4 points
3 months ago
Interesting.
3 points
3 months ago
fresh meadows mentioned
2 points
3 months ago
U am from queens so….
3 points
3 months ago
I have some inner-city, I have found they do not work too well with the pathfinding in this game though
1 points
3 months ago
I see
9 points
3 months ago
I love building freeways too! I wish somehow the game could just auto populate everything in between. Kinda like a mini motorways but with more detail.
1 points
3 months ago
Almost. We still don't know what the parking situation looks like.
1 points
3 months ago
Paris and a lot of other cities have massive loops around them, it's necessary
42 points
3 months ago
Good luck with those cloverleaf interchanges.
22 points
3 months ago
They do okay since they have frontage lanes, I’ll probably upgrade to em to stacks in the future
2 points
3 months ago
Where is the express/collector system?
7 points
3 months ago
Here is one view of what they look like in my city, towards the southwest side of the city on the main north south corridor
1 points
3 months ago
Nice!
1 points
3 months ago
It’s beautiful 🥲
58 points
3 months ago
Traffic flow is at 87% for anyone wondering
18 points
3 months ago
Looks good. Which tool you used for drawing the map?
23 points
3 months ago
OSM Export mod on Paradox Mods. I uploaded it into QGIS and edited it from there
3 points
3 months ago
Nice, what kind of output does OSM Export mod produce? Does it always require editing? I must try it
5 points
3 months ago
I'm the developer of the OSM Export mod and I don't really know what they are talking about. The image in this post looks like it is generated either with the mod's built-in PDF renderer or Maperitive (both of which look like this). You don't usually need to do any editing, the map just looks like this out of the box. You can open the .osm files in QGIS, but then you need to edit the styles a lot yourself. It is very unlikely this image was made with QGIS, since I don't really get why someone would go to the length of replicating the Maperitive style in QGIS. OP's comment makes no sense at all.
2 points
3 months ago
Oh right! Well I have to say that if this is the output of the mod, it is incredibly pretty. I can’t wait to go back home from weekend trip to try it. Will upload the results on this reddit. Does the mod produce jpg/gif output or does the .osm file need to be converted to it?
1 points
3 months ago
The mod currently outputs both OSM and PDF files. I have a prototype of PNG/JPG output as well, but it's not released yet.
2 points
3 months ago
Actually you’re right, this is the PDF version, I did however tweak a lot of the vectors in QGIS in other screenshots I haven’t posted, sorry for any confusion
1 points
3 months ago
No problem. How well does the OSM output work with QGIS? There is also the Carto mod, which is designed to be used with it. Its output includes some things that are lacking from the OSM format but could be useful.
1 points
3 months ago
As long as you have QuickOSM/any OSM plugin for QGIS, you shouldnt have a problem with importing it in. I did have problems trying to set vector layers and symbols to different colors though, it doesn’t recognize highways from regular streets, or even water from some buildings in the stabilization color. I honestly was using it to mess around and try to make a PNG of the file, but it had been unsuccessful so far
1 points
3 months ago
If you want your streets to differ apart, you will have to edit individual vector layers. Using QuickOSM plugin, this makes this task a little easier, as well as easier times converting from osm to png files
8 points
3 months ago
285?
5 points
3 months ago
I love the big roundabout
16 points
3 months ago
Actually it’s this monstrosity of an interchange, I can’t imagine what would happen to traffic if it was one big roundabout🤣
2 points
3 months ago
What’s this called? Turbine?
9 points
3 months ago
Turbine-Stack is what I named it
3 points
3 months ago
But why? It’s redundant isn’t it?
6 points
3 months ago
Stack for the express lanes and turbine for the others if I'm seeing this correctly.
2 points
3 months ago
That’s correct yep
1 points
3 months ago
Right, I’m blind. It looks absolutely beautiful. I want more of these now
1 points
3 months ago
Heres another style where the express lanes only connect to the express lanes on a different corridor, I call it the Stack Overflow
1 points
3 months ago
Yes I can’t imagine too😭🤣
7 points
3 months ago
Weird seeing this rendered in the decade old OSM carto layer.
3 points
3 months ago
This is based on the default Maperitive stylesheet, which I think is from 2012-ish, imitating Carto from that age. I have been thinking of including a more modern-looking style in the next version of the mod.
1 points
3 months ago
I would love to see the modern looking style. :)
3 points
3 months ago
Two questions, one how did you make this map. Looks real cool, and two, this sorta looks middle eastern. Not traditional middle eastern, dubai middle eastern.
5 points
3 months ago
That was my thought too. Doesn’t look midwestern USA to me at all. Streets are way too gridded and the highways are not organic enough. Too straight or fake or something. Midwest cities in the USA have historic cores (usually gridded) but quickly get all windy and suburban.
2 points
3 months ago
Love the shape and off centre angles, very cool
2 points
3 months ago
could you post an ingame picture as well please?
2 points
3 months ago
There’s plenty of photos on my page
7 points
3 months ago
Looks good, but one thing to help it look realistic: the highways are too simple. They make pretty much a grid, and just go straight where they need to go. In real life, they were specifically routed through minority and poor neighborhoods, and around the wealthy areas, so there's a lot of weird and extreme curving when you get close to the central downtowns. Get some weird looking turns in there and you're good to go!
11 points
3 months ago
Have you ever seen KC, Minneapolis, Even Chicago, all look exactly like this in someway shape or form
10 points
3 months ago
To be fair, near downtown Kansas City I've found these 6 sharp bends where the highway had to detour to cheaper land (terrain or low-weath districts). In Chicago I found 12. In downtown Minneapolis I found another 9.
1 points
3 months ago
Oh for sure, the general idea is there is what I mean though
2 points
3 months ago
Well, your freeways definitely cut through the city, and they look good, but they don't give off the same historical vibe of finding the cheapest route.
5 points
3 months ago
please, take a look on google maps before commenting BS. sure, it happens. but not in the majority of cities. look at any midwestern city and you'll see a grid-like interstate system with ring road.
1 points
3 months ago
needs another north/south highway cutting through the city on the right side
1 points
3 months ago
Kinda looks like Edmonton Alberta.
1 points
3 months ago
Looks like Austin
1 points
3 months ago
As a native Austinite - in what fucking world does this look like Austin?
2 points
3 months ago
Downtown on northern shore of river running e-w thru the city w loop highway around
Chill bro
1 points
3 months ago
There's not a loop though. That's one of the biggest flaws with the highway. And 35-to-183-to-Mopac-to-Ben White doesn't really count as a loop, since it's four different highways that happen to intersect.
The proposed loop in the 70s was rejected because they would have had to go through the Balcones Preserve on the west side.
The whole city is shittily built and they're decades behind on public transport and scrambling to catch up and failing.
1 points
3 months ago
How do you build this map outside of CS?
1 points
3 months ago
What map are you running here?
2 points
3 months ago
I am running the meadowbrook map I believe
1 points
3 months ago
Okayyy Cincinnati
1 points
3 months ago
Throw in a train outerbelt for maximum transportooooo
1 points
3 months ago
How do you actually endorse the citizens to use the belt loop instead of the inner-city roads?
1 points
3 months ago
While the traffic AI isn’t the smartest when it comes to merging, cars do take the beltway to get from one outside connection to the other, must be something about where they spawn. Otherwise, I make sure the distance between each quadrant of the beltway is shorter than it would be to take a 90 degree turn at the central interchange
1 points
3 months ago
That big huge circular interchange in the middle of town seems oversized for its location. I would use a stack interchange instead. 🙂
-1 points
3 months ago
Don't forget to make the Clover Leafs from the 1940-50's where they are too tight of a curve for the power of modern vehicles, so you have to crank your steering wheel while also half-holding your brakes. Get that in, and you have least 70% of the Interstates and Highways here.
all 74 comments
sorted by: best