The Cities Unlimited Archives: Pedestrian and Cyclist Networks

Another Cities Unlimited archive, addressing the use of pedestrian and bicycle networks. Posted with the permission of their orginal author, tr0ub1e, these are articles archived from the Cities Unlimited website (along with the first page of their respective comment threads) before the boards were closed down. A huge thanks to Metropolis member Ephemeron for his foresight in hanging on to these, and his hard work cleaning up the formatting! The usual Drawing Board disclaimer applies. Note: dark red text indicates links to other pages on the boards that are no longer active. Commentary below!

Pedestrian & Cyclist Networks/Infrastructure

a Conceptual article by tr0ub1es0me

#29053 tr0ub1e

(author & contributors: biglower, krzysiek, Lord David, Rexer, tr0ub1es0me)

Links to relevant CitiesXL.com discussion threads:

• Bikes
• Car-Free City

An aspect lacking in SimCity 4 was the ability to create car-free or low car usage areas. One part of the problem was that every residential Lot needed direct road access, while the other problem was a complete lack of any tools to create functional infrastructure dedicated to pedestrians or cyclists only. In addition the walking distances, speeds, and acceptable commutes along road sidewalks for pedestrians were inaccurate. These need to be corrected for Cities XL.

With modifications and custom content for SimCity 4 it became possible to create pedestrian networks, but they would give access only to commercial and industrial Lots and not to residential Lots. All of these networks also needed to be plopped piece-by-piece, which was not ideal.

Although we should be able to provide pedestrian and cyclist only access to Lots, it may be beneficial (but not mandatory) to provide secondary or "back" access for road vehicles. For example, for delivery of stock/goods to retail outlets in pedestrian-only shopping streets - freight access would be possible without direct road access, but it would take longer to transport the goods. For residential Lots without direct road access, some inhabitants may still own cars - and as such would park in the street if permitted, or in nearby public parking if any is provided.

More attention should be given to these simple but fundamental forms of transportation for Cities XL. Here is a breakdown of the key features that were missing from SimCity 4:

• Functional open paved areas and plazas with different textures available from unattractive (cheap) concrete to fancy patterned (expensive) paving. These should not have to be plopped, or be restricted to rectangular shapes; nor should they be restricted to segments that are the width of tiles on a low-density grid like the one which we had to work with in SimCity 4. We should be able to draw out an area of any shape which can be then be filled in with the paving type chosen. Some of paving options should have a "pre-set" of various props repeated along them over a given distance (e.g. individual trees, flowerbeds with or without trees, benches, public telephone boxes, etc). There should also be an option for blank plazas which we can customise ourselves with ploppable and removable props.

  These paved areas can be used for public squares and plazas, parks, pedestrian/cyclist access to building Lots, and pedestrian-only streets in any area we choose (shopping areas in city and town centres, for example, or within residential estates).

• Functional and draggable cyclist and pedestrian pathways. We should be able to decide the width with some degree of freedom, and the paving surface/texture. We would drag the network to place it - alike any other network type (including adding free-forming curves if we wish). The width should not be restricted to being equivalent to a number of tiles on a low-density grid like the one in SimCity 4. We should be able to create both narrow (1-2 metres) and wide pathways/cyclepaths. There should be "pre-set" options for props repeated along the network as well as the option to customise them ourselves with ploppable and removable props.

  They can be used for parks and other customised open-air public spaces, pedestrian/cyclist access to building Lots, pedestrian-only streets, and pedestrian/cyclist alleyways between buildings or Lots.

• Narrower cycle-only lanes which can be added to roads/sidewalks.
• Options to add or remove, and customise the width and the appearance of sidewalks along our roads. There should be various surface paving textures, and "pre-set" or ploppable/removable props. See the Concepts article Roads & Highways for more on this.
• Functional ploppable zebra crossings (pedestrian has priority over cars) and pelican crossings (traffic-light controlled) for pedestrians to cross road networks.

Aside from paved open areas and networks for pedestrians and cyclists, there are some other features which need to be included:

• Pedestrian/cyclist tunnels and bridges to cross other networks, and also to cross rivers or water. We would need these to stretch to any length as necessary, in order to cross the different widths of other transport infrastructure or cross varying amounts of water.

  There should be different styles of pedestrian/cyclist bridges - including those with steps and slopes leading up to the bridge (slopes make for easier use by cyclists); those with steps only; and those which are flat or bowed and are not raised because they stretch between two pieces of land which are higher than the area the bridge crosses (e.g. at a stream with a drop or slope either side, or over a sunken transport network).

  Also see the Concepts article "Bridges & Tunnels".

• Wooden frame, concrete-built, or brick-built boardwalks/piers/jetties for pedestrians/cyclists only; which can be placed along waterfronts and also extend out over water. These can also allow buildings to be plopped or zoned on top of them.

  Also see the Concepts article Waterfront Infrastructure.

• Bicycle stations, for encouraging modern environmentally-conscious cities. Cycling is a way for people to move quicker than walking in a city without polluting, and the "CityBike" scheme and bicycle stations in Paris, France have been such a success that it now has its own bikes. We should be able to plop these innovative solutions into our cities, and commuters can hire a bicycle from the station. This would allow for people to use other forms of transport without the need to bring their own cycle, and reach the city centre or other area before switching to cycling for local travelling.

  

  These can also provide another way of generating money for the player if they are in high usage.

The grade of the terrain is another factor to be considered for programming the simulation to determine how and when different modes of transport are used by commuters. With cycling, speed declines very rapidly as the uphill grade increases, even moderately. Also, a long grade, even at a gentle slope, slows the biker more as he goes. But on the downhill sides, the biker regulates his speed. The difference is not just that the cyclist goes faster; but that it takes him less energy go as fast as is desired. Similarly, it takes more energy for pedestrians to walk uphill (although walking downhill still uses energy unlike with cycling which hardly uses any).

Steep hills should definitely affect commuter willingness to cycle and walk, but some hills are unavoidable and determined cyclists and pedestrians will still use it, or find an alternative route. Many people do cycle to work through the different areas of Greater London in the U.K., meaning that they have no choice but to take on hills and sometimes negotiate short or long but fairly steep hills. Many areas are full of them, and nearly all areas have at least a few hilly parts. Of course, hardly anyone would cycle up a mountain for work every day. I do see many cyclists negotiating some of Greater London's frequent steep hills.

The gradient and the quantity of uphill sections of a commute should both independently affect the amount of work involved in cycling and walking, also increasing the commute time. That is definite. As a result, the amount of work and its effect on the willingness of commuters to cycle should be set to a realistic scale (perhaps also based on the characteristics of a resident such as wealth, health, etc.).

External Sources

Post any other comments, suggestions, additions, or adjustments here too.

#29056 g314

I totally agree with this feature and I'm all for it! I also want to build overhead pedestrian walkways above roads or between two buildings with different styles (we could even set its height: imagine a bridge at the 3rd or 80th floor!) and possibly a whole pedestrian district. :)

EDIT: I was also thinking of airports pedestrian walkways that will be used between two terminals or even to get into a satellite terminal (surrounded by taxiways). I'd love to build these walkways + an el. rail/monorail system for my airport.

#29065 Asheroo/ aka. Ashley

Pedestrian and Cycling lanes are pretty important. I was recently watching a movie about Urban Sprawl in SOSE class, and they said how there are people who would cycle to work because of traffic jams and exercise.

Also in parks as well (which I mentioned in my Article on Micro-Management) should have pedestian and cycling lanes.

It would reduce the cars and the pollution. As long aas their are enough bike racks to support the numbers, it would be fine.

I also agree with g314, about building overhead walkways.

#29079 Pumasboy

Should a general rule be if your city is more densely populated the more your people will use mass transit? I mean when I think of pedestrian only streets, I think of some European cities that are very densely populated. I would be very happy if I can create medinas (very narrow streets that can be less than a metre wide, mostly found in many North African cities) in my cities. I want to recreate Fez, Morocco which is believed to be the largest car free urban area in the world. Also there could be pedestrian traffic jams the narrower your streets are...

#29083 Nate

Pumasboy- I think a good way to handle that would be for commute time rather than commute distance to decide how people get places (and also adjust it for cost too).

Then you could adjust the cost of mass transit based on usage and the time for commute could be affected by the frequency of your mass transit. You might have to come up with a fudge factor in the equation though. If you are going to take a train that comes to the stop every 1/2 hour and takes 5 minutes to get to where you are going you can't say the commute takes 35 minutes. A car might take 10 minutes to get where your going, which on paper is slower if you count the waiting time but longer if you don't. It's not as simple as just figuring out whether a train happens to be leaving when your commuter is either, since your commuter can rearrange their schedule to reduce the waiting time.

The denser the population the more frequently you can afford to run mass transit. The more frequently you run mass transit and the more congested and slower regular traffic is the more likely commuters will use the mass transit option.

#29201 tr0ub1e

i added another section at the end of the article which i had forgotten about. for benefit of those who have already read the thread, here it is:

tr0ub1e wrote:

The grade of the terrain is another factor to be considered for programming the simulation to determine how and when different modes of transport are used by commuters. With cycling, speed declines very rapidly as the uphill grade increases, even moderately. Also, a long grade, even at a gentle slope, slows the biker more as he goes. But on the downhill sides, the biker regulates his speed. The difference is not just that the cyclist goes faster; but that it takes him less energy go as fast as is desired. Similarly, it takes more energy for pedestrians to walk uphill (although walking downhill still uses energy unlike with cycling which hardly uses any).

Steep hills should definitely affect commuter willingness to cycle and walk, but some hills are unavoidable and determined cyclists and pedestrians will still use it, or find an alternative route. Many people do cycle to work through the different areas of Greater London in the U.K., meaning that they have no choice but to take on hills and sometimes negotiate short or long but fairly steep hills. Many areas are full of them, and nearly all areas have at least a few hilly parts. Of course, hardly anyone would cycle up a mountain for work every day. I do see many cyclists negotiating some of Greater London's frequent steep hills.

The gradient and the quantity of uphill sections of a commute should both independently affect the amount of work involved in cycling and walking, also increasing the commute time. That is definite. As a result, the amount of work and its effect on the willingness of commuters to cycle should be set to a realistic scale (perhaps also based on the characteristics of a resident such as wealth, health, etc.).

g314 wrote:

I also want to build overhead pedestrian walkways above roads or between two buildings with different styles (we could even set its height: imagine a bridge at the 3rd or 80th floor!)

that would be great! i'd forgotten about that but many of the world's modern cities have those sky walkways between some buildings :)

g314 wrote:

I was also thinking of airports pedestrian walkways that will be used between two terminals or even to get into a satellite terminal (surrounded by taxiways). I'd love to build these walkways + an el. rail/monorail system for my airport.

i'm hoping this will be handled by the ability to "design and layout our own projects" as asked by the long-since held official site poll. by zoning the airport (rather than choosing the option to plop a pre-made one) and then setting up all the different pieces ourselves such as terminals, runways, long-stay carparks, etc. we SHOULD then in theory also be able to draw out transport networks within the zone too - such as pedestrian walkways, access roads, place bus stops and taxi ranks for internal travelling, or even include different types of railways.

Pumasboy wrote:

I would be very happy if I can create medinas (very narrow streets that can be less than a metre wide, mostly found in many North African cities) in my cities. I want to recreate Fez, Morocco which is believed to be the largest car free urban area in the world. Also there could be pedestrian traffic jams the narrower your streets are...

i completely agree with you Pumasboy. it would be great to build those kinds of cities with longer histories that have narrow pedestrian-only walkways between and for access to buildings. with pedestrian transport networks, congestion should be possible as you mentioned - just as it is with any other type of transport network.

those features are even found much closer to home for myself as in the UK we have lots of pedestrian-only streets in major and old cities/towns - both narrow and wide versions. many town centres and high streets have also been pedestrianalised in recent years across the country to make them more pedestrian-friendly and focused on shoppers. in some cases new alternative road routes have to be paid for and constructed to eleviate extra congestion that would be created if the pedestrianalised road was one of or the only main arterial through-route. the town centre centre in Romford (where i live) is pretty much all pedestrianalised. there are some back-acess roads to some parts (not all) but there are no through-roads at all. a four lane ring-road circles the town centre for outside access to the different areas of the town centre, and for through traffic to get from one side of the town centre to the other.

historically, that was not the case, originally all of the town centre was used by cars - and even the busy market place was still used as a main road and through-route for cars as well as having the market stalls on either side. it is only over the last 50 years that this changed.

without pedestrian-only streets and pathways for pedestrian-only access to some building Lots (including residential), i would not be able to create my hometown or most other towns and cities in the UK.

#29231 Yunkery Casdent (Gary)

Yes tr0ub1e!! I want these people-powered forms of transport for my cities and esp villages. My cities could have more bicycle accidents than bike accidents (which I would prefer; still hate accidents at all, but hate motor bike accidents even worse). I always feel that by dedicating lanes for pedestrians and cyclists are better than putting them all on one lane. and we could save on time for short distances, (and go through small lanes where cars wouldn't fit).

please, I hope the dev team has already done this in their lanes concept of transportation.

#29253 Aspharanx

This is one of the things I miss the most in SC4. Not only since it's good for the environment, but it's also faster in cities and you don't have to worry about finding a parking space and paying for it. Plus, in this region cycling is pretty important. It's not surprising that Europe has so many bicycle tours, every town got at least one :D

One thing I missed in your text that would be nice would be a ferry. Were I work it's next to a river and to a ferry only for cyclist and pedestrians. If you live on the other side you are in the town after about 2 kilometer. If you'd go by car you have to take the first bridge and you're in for a tour of about 14 kilometer. A ferry is often cheaper than a bridge, and it's a small form of tourism too.

#67762 bob winston

its a great idea in a european country there is a project to intergrate road and path way, it was on beyond tommorrow where there had paved roads where the road and path was seamlessly joined. there was only one rule people rule over cars, cars give way to people, also there were fountains to block out road noise. as road noise increase the fountain height and noise increases

#70702 Railo

As a Dutch guy, I cannot go around cycling paths and other cycling infra-structure.

I've seen people from cities as big as New York being impressed by the station-side bicycle 'parking' of a relatively normal province-city called Groningen (about 120.000 inhabitants) in the Netherlands

This deviantart picture shows about a fourth of the total capacity of this bicycle storage facility. Which clearly shows how intensive bike-use is in the Netherlands (though this is a university-city, which may up the amount of station-side bicycles quite a bit).

Also, due to the city centre that is closed to cars, and other cities being clogged by cars, it is often faster to cross a city centre by bike than by any other form of transport. That is, only if the available infrastructure is there. And in the Netherlands, it IS.

Bicycle trips can hold their own up to around 5 to 10 km. I daily used to cycle about 11 km in a group of about 50-80 kids to my school in a nearby city (highschool would be a proper translation I guess). (The group broke up in several smaller groups later though).

#80580 JMVL

Something that I've always missed in SimCity 4 was the possibility to create a cycle network. The ideas that I've read here are great! It would be great if a possibility to create a cycle network comes into Cities XL.

In The Netherlands the bicycle is a much used way of transport. Did you know that Dutch people have average two bicycles?

Groningen (183.000 inhabitants, capital of Groningen), he city where I live, has also been called the "World Cycling City", because 57% of journeys within the city are made by bicycle. It's also a very "cycle friendly" city. In an Italian TV program about investigative journalism "Report" appeared a short movie, considering the use of bikes in Groningen a good practice to emulate in Italy. Though they speak Italian in the video, it's a good idea to look. The video shows many examples about how the cycle network is implemented into the city. Click here for the video. I hope this video gives some ideas about implementing the cycle network into the game.

Also, since April 2009 it's also possible to visit Groningen with Google's Street View. Here are some links to some interesting cycle lane/path things:

• "Classic" cycle paths next to road at the Paterswoldseweg
• "Modern" dual lane cycle path next to road at the Paterswoldseweg (and the entrance of the street where I live)
• "Classic" cycle lanes on road at the Van Iddekingeweg
• Cycle lane on one-way road at the Pelsterstraat (notice: cycles are allowed to drive throw the street in both directions, cars are allowed to drive throw the street in just one direction.)
• "Classic rural" cycle lanes on road at the Bruilweering (notice: this is also inside the city of Groningen! I ride here by bike everyday when I go to school.)
• Bus stop on road and "Classic" cycle lanes on road at the Koerierstersweg
• Gravel cycle paths next to dirt track (outside the city of Groningen)
• Street (actually road, because "weg" means "road") to cycle path transition at the Veenweg (notice the sidewalk at the right!)
• Cycle lanes at roundabout (1) at the Van Iddekingeweg and the Vondellaan
• Cycle lanes at roundabout (2) at the Paterswoldseweg, Van Swietenlaan and the C.G. Wichmannstraat
• Cycle path at Groningen's biggest roundabout
• Cycle lanes at a traffic light controlled junction at the Paterswoldseweg, Overwinnigsplein and Laan v/d Vrijheid
• Cycle lanes at a traffic light controlled motorway exit at the Van Ketwich Verschuurlaan (A28 exit 39, Groningen-Zuid)
• "Classic" cycle paths next to road at a railway crossing at the Paterswoldseweg

I hope this post will bring some new ideas about how to implement the cycle network into Cities XL.