My biggest city is crippled by traffic - Is it fixable? | Cities Skylines 2

Today we're implementing a range of "traffic fixes" to Riverview, in hopes of alleviating some of the most problematic areas, as we continue our slow but steady improvements of the city's infrastructure, which in its current state has severe bottlenecks. We start with the main arterials covering the massive North Port of Riverview, home to thousands of jobs, and make substantial changes to railways and major avenues while also implementing roundabouts. Afterward, we focus our attention on quick-fixing some inadequate bus routes as well as our main tram route - while also making some smaller changes to roads in Downtown. We finish off with some upzoning of the districts near the Riverview Airport to kickstart the new wave of development, as increasing rents and housing prices are becoming a growing issue in the city. Hope you enjoy!
Patreon with Ad-Free Early-Access to new uploads when possible other goodies! - / infrastructurist
All my Cities: Skylines Series playlists:
Cities Skylines 2 Realistic North American City - Riverview: • Cities Skylines 2 Real...
American Realistic County - Dakota Falls: • Realistic American Cou...
Crystal Reef County - Vanilla+ Florida inspired city: • Cities Skylines - Crys...
Coniferia - Realistic fictional Australia/Canada-inspired city: • Sunny coastal town! - ...
The American Dream - Realistic American City: • Cities: Skylines - The...
Project JAPAN: • Starting A Realistic J...
Building a realistic European/UK city (really old series!): • Starting A New City! -...
Map;
- Mountain Village
Mods;
- Unified Icon Library
- Better Bulldozer
- Water Features
- Tree Controller
- Anarchy
- Move It
- ExtraLib
- Map Texture Replacer
- ExtraLandscapingTools
- Plop the Growables
- PreservePhotoMode
- Line Tool
- Historical Start
- FPS Limiter
- Population Rebalance
- Prop Lights Mod
- Traffic Simulation Adjuster
- Extended Road Upgrades
- Extra networks and Areas
- I18n EveryWhere
- Water Visual Tweaks
- DependencyPack
- Gooee
- LegacyFlavour
- RealisticDensity
- Land Value Overhaul
- Find It
- ExtendedTooltip
- Weather+
Settings;
- Everything is set to high, and upscaled to 4K (3840 × 2160) resolution.
Hardware specs;
- 3080, 32 GB ram, I5-12600KF.
Music;
artlist.io/
www.epidemicsound.com/
#citiesskylines #citiesskylines2

[@rivers169]

They need to tweak sprawl and density. No way a city that size only has 100 thousand people.

[@tracycui3800]

my city also needs fixing, every building says it has lots of people, but the total is just adding up to 20k edit: in cs1 they actually add people up, a city up to 3 ~ 5 times smaller has the same population.

[@Infrastructurist]

Medium and high-density residential really could use some tweaking, as household counts seem very low!

[@jdjenk04]

This is why I like population adjustment mods. Same thing in CS1. Single family homes should have single family, sure. However the medium and high density always has way less than it should.

[@kfckillie1]

And offices, we grow or plop a skyscraper and it has 40ish Sims....😵‍💫

[@Infrastructurist]

@@kfckillie1 Correct! - but you can sort of get around that by using the Realistic Density mod, which I am :-)

[@BlackBull77]

Yes, complete bus lines overhaul. More shorter lines with interconnections, plus it's time for a subway. Great episode as usual

[@konkretnykonkret647]

I think that metro, despite being unrealistic with that population, is a great idea. I think that three cities might sign an agreement to create a metro line that connects downtown of each one. A little inspiration from Moscow metro on my part, but a circle connecting downtowns, each city then build it's own metro line that cuts through/connect with the circle to allow a train swap

[@laresistance2053]

yes!

[@Morkeoth]

Thing is, the game isn't realistic about population anyway ^^ I fully agree he needs subway !

[@jdzla]

for more soviet inspiration, we can do a soviet triangle!

[@mordecaif]

How about a metro? Like Washington DC, it can be underground downtown and then come out for the suburbs and surrounding towns.

[@BrokeHungarian]

Just want to let you know that this is by far my most favorite cities skylines series. Also you could get an elevated highway to run through the downtown to add some realism.

[@bababababababa6124]

Hats off to you for continuing to put up with this game despite all of its problems. Most of my favourite CS KZbinrs have already given up and gone back to CS1 😂

[@Infrastructurist]

It's rough at times, that's for sure, and it really saddens me just how messy everything has been. But I am hopeful that down the line, CS2 will evolve into the successor it was meant to be.

[@Darknova591]

​​​@@Infrastructurist you,CPP and CodiakTheKodiak are the only ones that don't give up on this game Edit: and Timeister and Mike builds and Sully and Imperatur and Overcharged Egg and I think that's it.

[@melodiousapollo7307]

@@Darknova591 CityPlannerPlays has a series in CSL2 still, if I remember right! If you haven't checked him out his content is pretty nice!

[@zergplague]

@@Darknova591 they are getting paid to stream the game bro. its one of the only reasons its even still on the radar.

[@bustorobusto6316]

I can’t blame anyone for going back to CS:1 since it’s still a better game than CS:2 is atm. I hope this game becomes what it could be but personally I am much happier watching people play CS:1 and glad creators went back

[@MacBolzack]

39:59 The parking lot should be turned around so that its entrance is to the smaller side road and not the main road there. Yes, I want a dedicated buses and public transport fixing video in Riverview!

[@CallMeInfinite0000]

I think you should definitely have an overhaul of the transit network in the city. 4 bus lines and 2 tram lines is simply not enough for 100K+ people

[@kentan436]

The river and the sky looks amazing while being paired with the city in night time especially with the northern lights

[@ollihakala710]

PLEASE make the Birdsong street in Downtown a walking street with only accessible motor-traffic being buses and maybe trams too! It's just so clogged up!!!

[@davidlow8104]

unfortunately for the residents of Riverview, this is supposed to be a realistic North American city.

[@ricardonunespinheiro6004]

Give people what they crave for!!! Full transit episode!!! 😂 I believe that the city needs to expand the bus and Tram Network with smaller and interconnected routes. It would be great to add dedicated bus lanes trough out Downtown and the more densely populated areas. Congratulations for all the videos, Riverview is my favorite series!!!

[@seathomplay4167]

I believe the next episode should be dedicated to fixing that extremely long bus line that includes making a couple lines out of L3. It seems like you might need a transfer station that handles those lines.

[@ollihakala710]

As I have suggested in other episode too, maybe you could do a BRT-line: Downtown Riverview - East Riverview - Kendrick. Anyway, your videos are awesome!!❤❤

[@mallysh1998]

Hey bud, awesome as always! That main entry point to the city is just pure realism when new generations are trying to fix old bugs… full transit episode, let’s goooo! This metro area definitely needs some regional rail, good dedicated bus service, awesome trams and maybe even a subway! Full support to you😊

[@suushii90]

Those buslines makes zero sense. You can optimize busses so much. They should not go all over the place, they should connect two places with many pickups along the way. Build a metro for the really far journeys

[@who_is_artis]

Thoughts: 1. reeeally useful mod I found is Cim Route Highlighter, which offers something similar to the traffic routing view in CS1, except I think so far you can't select streets and see where the traffic is going, but you can click on separate vehicles which is a solid replacement. I think you should look into that since it helps with traffic management. 2. 48:54 The reason they're not disappearing is because of the mod that lets you plop buildings without having appropriate zoning underneath them, I think it's Plop the Growables. I don't think there's a fix for this, either no buildings care what their zoning is or all of them complain when it's not what they need. 3. I'm surprised that after all this time of working on Riverview it's just barely reaching 100k 😅 It looks and feels like it should have more

[@Infrastructurist]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts - good input and mod suggestion! As for Riverview's population figure, it really comes down to low-household counts of medium and high-density residential buildings. I am hoping a future update to the Realistic Density mod (which sort of fixes low-worker counts for workplace buildings) might include beefed up household counts :-D

[@jursz6938]

I would love to see a bus overhaul coming up! Maybe it would even be time to consider adding a subway to riverview🤔

[@harshkejriwal2485]

Yes completely deleting all the public transport and doing them all over again and more efficiently will definitely improve the usage of it. Love your episodes as usual ❤

[@pcsproshop8972]

What a georgous game! Needs work, but thankfully It's worth investing time to justify dev time! thanks for another captivating video!

[@thelongrun_3367]

I would also suggest restarting the bus routes. 1. Add more than 4 routes 2. Shorten the routes with more connections/transfer. 3. More stops, people are being funneled to the too few stops.

[@nafsiammara]

The game is actually ridiculously beautiful. The detail on every single asset down to tiny objects on lots is insane. 50% of my game time was just looking at it. Though that was just because there wasn't anything to do.

[@alisacrowder4833]

this city could really use a metro system especially up grading rta line

[@goodman3460]

yeay back in riverview

[@vascobettencourt2715]

Extraordinary, keep up your good work young man!

[@Xouloth]

To be honest, i think your city needs a hospital. Great video as always!

[@MrUnbekannt34]

12:14 The advanced traffic ai is doing exactly what in real life will happen, when the main road is jammed …. take the fastest route

[@llamagang2370]

Just my 2 cents here but the traffic circle entering downtown Riverview from the highway seems to be getting congested because of the pedestrian crossing just after the circle. Maybe move the crossing up the street away from the circle and triggering the crossing by signal would alleviate that heavy traffic you are seeing there during peek hours. Amazing build, I love how this city looks and I’d agree the traffic issues do help sell the realism. Cheers!

[@stephenhall4821]

Doing a fantastic job! Even with the state of the game. Maybe you should just completely revamp the the whole public transport system.

[@Kurobisen]

Infrastructurist and timeister posted on the same time today Perfection.

[@nrbq3110]

Great episode, one tip to loosen the traffic jam in your industrial area. You need to separate the entrance and exit from the industrial area. Now both it is attached to one avenue. Instead I would make a one way intersection going into the industrial area on the northern part of the industrial area. And in the southern area, the intersection you were tweeting today, I would change it to a one way intersection going out of the industrial area. By doing this you will have a traffic flowing from north to south. Please try if you like my idea, no complicated intersections needed and it looks a lot better.

[@defatl3118]

"this guy is in a V8 Camaro so he doesnt really care" lol

[@mewosh_]

You should really make a episode where you rework the buses entirely. I would also suggest adding a train stop in the harbour to hopefully make some people choose to take it instead of a car. Maybe consider adding dedicated bus/tram lanes to Sunnyside Avenue downtown

[@NikolasBeige]

You definitely need passenger train lines that will connect all districts in your city with a grand station in the centre so that you won't have 367 people waiting at a one bus stop. A big bus station in the centre is also a must. Passenger trains also have to have their own separate rail lines that will go parallel with the cargo ones. You can't just build one rail line for cargo and passenger trains and expect no congestion. Another option is metro, but in real life for city to have a metro there has to be at least over a million people living in it, maybe in terms of CS it can be around 300k.

[@averagezing]

I want to see the original bridge next to your new bridge from next episode turned into a train bridge or a pedestrian bridge! Feels like a realistic solution for what would be done to avoid car redundancy :)

[@novasup666]

Yes, we up for a complete bus overhaul! You may use higher capacity buses on the lines going thru downtown to have better service without flooding the city with buses

[@highground66]

Underground would be sick to add to the city

[@Thunk00]

1. Add lanes to I-25. Four through lanes each way should probably be enough. Big cities need big freeways. 2. Drain the canal around downtown and replace it with a grade-separated freeway. 3. Add an elevated freeway through central downtown right over one of the streets flanking Riverview Central Gardens.

[@niklas5521]

Been watching you since the start of cities skylines 2, but started watching all of your videos now. Love you and your humor man please keep up the great content. 💯💯

[@raoulraoul7129]

1:48 Saw that heart, already gave like.

[@finnjones625]

Not gonna lie but you could build some houses around the airport, since there are cities that have these kind of housing zones around important infrastructure like highways, train stations, ports and airports.

[@RbxRave]

WAKE UP BABY, INFRARSTRUCTURIST HAS POSTED A NEW VIDEO🗣🔥🔥🔥🔥!!!!!!

[@greezyy5654]

Ay bro I just wanna say, thank you, I have been able to improve in my city development a whole lot 🙏 (been here since cs1)

[@cjgslayyyy]

definitely would love to see a dedicated video about public transport. trams, buses (and BRT systems), underground metros etc!

[@BlueBirdLK]

Brother your videos I stumbled upon are amazing, I never used any of the NA/EU assets together obviously me being from NA I thought the EU assets would look dumb but when I realized you were right and that mixing the two changes my whole cities and you bridge a gap between a divide I know for a fact many other players feel the same, just subscribed you earned it.

[@The_Muko]

Nice video its defenly time for a metro i think and a overhall of the busses and trams 2. Nice shot of the nothern lights :)

[@LlawenSeri]

Seems to be about time for a public transport episode 🎉 Maybe you should consider dedicated bus lines, that each connect a suburb in the north to one in the south as well as west to north, with some kind of bus hub connecting the lines. Could Northport be connected by train? And overall, isn't the city large enough by now to support a metro system (even if something overground, like an S-Bahn seems to be more realistic)

[@LlawenSeri]

Seems like S-Bahn translates to suburban train. 🙄 Okay... straight forward, I like that but... 🙄

[@kevinb7649]

"Critically acclaimed flawless game" - Literally lags as you say that lmao. The city looks amazing though, I love your attention to detail.

[@carlchambers3985]

I love how much casual shade is thrown in your videos 🤣

[@WhatsleftofTom]

A ploppable pedestrian overpass / underpass for busy junctions that didn’t take up any extra space would be a good addition. Maybe in the road tools with the other upgrades

[@nauji]

Definetly needs a public transit episode, maybe extending the light rail network like in so many American cities (but it has to be slightly inefficient)

[@reinham]

Riverview is my favorite series of yours, keep it up! Also, for that big traffic circle, it might help to move the ped crossing further down the road to prevent cars stopping in the roundabout

[@keanusolan2844]

I don't think you are using the transit options efficiently, notwithstanding the actual issues with the game itself. I would introduce subways if that option is available or even commuter rail. Use the subway/commuter rail stations to connect the major points of the cities (I would say there are four or five major centers in the city). And, then connect your buses or trams from those stations to service the areas in between two or three stations. The bus routes are too long, making them unable to move the volume of people that they want. No bus should be travelling from Downtown to Northport when rail would be much faster.

[@MicahGelfand]

make a New York-style subway that would probably help traffic

[@MIAWZUUU]

i was here from the begin and its so nice to see the city grow 😀

[@gp5313]

The tail tip of a tram caused so much trouble, wow

[@lochlannblack7699]

Love the chanel bro keep it up man

[@chaos_monster]

around 1:00:00 it would be really cool to have a signalling that allows pedestrians (and bikes) as their own phase and afterwards each direction of cars get their phase. Similar to large crossings in real life

[@wrick17]

Make underground or overpass for people to walk across the roads. Lot of high density cities have it. No road crossings in high traffic areas.

[@Alex-oy4qn]

I‘d love it if you may upload the savegame for riverview to pdx mods. I think it would be a sick challenge map for building a functioning public transit network.

[@ricardoandrade2521]

You really need to make a episode dedicated to public transportation. Not only because I love urban mobility in CS, the traffic situation is a total mess though. You should build a metro line throughout the metro area and a few short bus lines connecting the stations

[@MotorStorm]

I don't remember you building these dams around the port area. Did I miss an episode or did you do it off camera?

[@nikolaivii5766]

One thing I hate is the lack of reasonable footbridges across roads. Right now you have to clear out a huge space and use pedestrian ramps. I think pedestrian paths should allow much greater elevation changes which turn into steps so you can let people cross a road using reasonable space, or even better for this, a ploppable footbridge that could be even smaller. I think most of the mechanics for this are already in place since there is a footbridge over the vanilla train station platforms.

[@nate-a-nater8656]

38:32 Adding the bus lanes was fine, BUT if you moved the bus stop to another side of that street, it might have moved those people out of the street and made the traffic just a little faster. Also, parking on the streets should be removed when they are on turn lanes in the downtown area, and big trucks should be banded in the city as well, but only if it doesn't affect supplies in the city.

[@laresistance2053]

yes, you should revamp completely the public transportation routes between the main cities of the map by establishing bus, train, or metro routes, implementing tram services within the cities, establishing a bus network to connect suburbs to downtown areas, and creating a ring route of train or metro between the three main cities. These changes should have the potential to significantly improve traffic flow by at least 50%.

[@marcs1024]

9:20 if only we could see where drivers were heading... my favourite thing from CS1

[@who_is_artis]

There is a mod called Cim Route Highlighter that does something similar. With it you can click on a vehicle and it will show a path of where it's heading. It can also show paths heading towards a specific building that you select. I don't think it can do roads like CS1 worked where you saw all traffic on a piece of road but it's better than nothing!

[@marcs1024]

@@who_is_artisis it on paradox store?? Imma try this out! Thank you

[@TheUberJulian]

Perhaps it's time for a subway? 😅 Love your videos so much!

[@thedankone1287]

You should put in some elevated pedestrian crossings at some of those busy roundabout intersections

[@MCnoCOMPLY]

Plop the Growables is why the zone changes don't condemn the buildings automatically.

[@VinceViking26]

I used underground traffic roads and roundabouts to solved the traffic bottlenecks, specialy for trucks from tndustrial area's to highway connections..

[@addisonbaker8211]

In terms of upzoning, can the next priority be that area south of downtonw between the big city center and southside? It's very central and well-connected, and next to a school, so it's certainly desirable, and the longer densification goes on without it the more out of place it looks stuck between a growing downtown and east riverview (which used to be very single family but is now buiding ever-higher) and southside (which used to be very single family but is now building ever-higher).

[@dummyxl]

You could have the train track from the cargo thingie over the traintrack then slope down to the Bridge and merge.

[@rb1967.]

I’ve learned no matter what you try the ai’s path finding is a disaster, I mean they literally swap lanes for no reason, do turns on places where that turn is “disallowed”.

[@matthieudupont901]

great video, I recommend you don't pause the game so often, so we see some life even when you are building roads & stuff

[@jans.4328]

I guess you need to have a big Bus Hub im Downtown Riverview next to the Train station and make some new Bus-Network as Hub-and-Spoke Network (Alike Airlines) with individual Bus networks to dedicated District, allowing transfer between the lines in city center bus hub. And maybe some fast transfers from big residentials directly to north port (due to massive job offering). Mass transport (like Subways) are unrealistic in a city this size, so efficient Bus network have to solve it

[@MU1RD3R]

Tyrkis! My fellow dane

[@evangyfto7042]

I think you should consider updating and expanding your tram/light railway network (meaning it needs to become a network now than sporadic lines) since a tram/light rail vehicle can carry significantly more passengers than an average bus. Use tram/light rail exclusive right of way in order to achieve a better flow (like Madison and Elizabeth street in Southside.) This is a solution a north american city would consider for a city of this size (not an undergound metro for sure!).

[@anonimus1230]

take the RTA3 line around the farms and small villages and meet again north of new cheisea

[@sangamanarasu705]

Use an additional train line as byepass to North Port train yard. They slow down everytime they pass through the yard

[@AsadAli-wi1mk]

Please do an ep fixing transport 🙏

[@peciarda]

Yes, definitely you should remake bus lines

[@K1tteh]

if you're making bridges on roads with tree medians you can put the extended sidewalk in the middle on the elevated part and it won't look janky. i died a little when i saw you get rid of the median trees in north port

[@antonmyrhorod6829]

@Infrastructurist ти робиш такі дії, що не відповідають сучасним тенденціям розвитку міста. Ти маєш сконцентруватися на розвитку трамвайної мережі і як мінімум збудувати пасажирську залізничну станцію в порту. Розширення доріг лише спонукатиме ще більше машин користуватися ними. Також вже час з'єднати найбіль густонаселені частини міста метро, комбінуй наземні та підземні колії. Також я вважаю що майже кожна дорога серед багатоповерхівок має мати свою автобусну лінію. Не важливо об'єднати все однією лінією, люди можуть робити пересадки! Кожен район має мати свій транспортний хаб з метро, трамваєм, автобусом і залізницею. Також зверни увагу що магістральна залізниця не може часто мати перетини зустрічних колій, ти маєш обводити зустрічні потяги через мости, аналогічно тому як ти будуєш швидкісні шосе. Лівий поворот потяга має бути через естакаду.

[@Everie]

I believe there's a density fix mod in the steam workshop... I say this because that metro area is the size of NY. No way it has only 100k population Also, I love this series. I missed it Edit.: RULE NUMBER ONE WHEN BUILDING ROUND-A-BOUTS! NEVER. Add a CROSSING. Right ONTO the ROUND-A-BOUT

[@cristobalcaro3392]

I think that you need a different line that serves the north-eastern suburbs. The travel time from the port to the city will be very high otherwise. This second line should intersect the turqoise line in some other point.

[@francoisetienne567]

From where are you taking those ending musics ?? There are amazing !!

[@user-th3vr1oi8k]

This can be like another 1 hour and 30 minutes like manage your traffic make sure they got a house fire Road public transportation Lines do you trains to ease the Metro the Metro to easy buses infrastructure as you're slowly coming up to about 90,000 looks like there's only made for about 35000 to nothing else public transport keep up with a good work😊😊😊

[@IsaacItalu]

Metro will help; overground and underground metro with switch points with tram and bus. Paris has decent public transportation, and London has it, as well as other places like Bristol and Glasgow & Europe has amazing infrastructure for transportation

[@georgepig7362]

You gotta get rid of some of that beautiful natural landscape and make some suburbs😍😍

[@mexieboy1]

i think you can solve some of the problems by adding stoppinglights to some of the pedestrian crossings, because now people are just blocking the road 😅 and maybe higher capacity busses?

[@theorixlux2605]

22:34 "god bless the hipsters" xD

[@RubyRuben1128]

I think its a pretty big missed feature to be unable to remove parking on roads and replace them with two extra lanes, it makes adding capacity in developed areas really difficult without demolishing one half of the buildings on the street

[@carlturner2744]

Might be worth removing the pedestrian crossings from the junctions and building pedestrian bridges to move the people traffic

[@kelvin4751]

are there pedestrian overhead bridges in the game? might be a good shout, can't imagine those drivers are happy waiting for eons to be able to continue their commute

[@FigureInMind]

I think you need another bright on the north side of the port.. heading towards. Subways.

[@majortom1164]

Get the people underground. Metro allows for greater passenger numbers and gets road blocking busses off the street

[@smackingshir1s]

could you do a transit overhaul episode where fix and add transit in riverview?

[@hydronpowers9014]

Right now is the best time to start building an extensive subway network. Don't make Congress get in your way and delay the project

[@Ramash440]

>Makes realistic american city >Traffic is hell I mean, sounds like it's working.

[@theflyingsamuraii]

In true north american fashion, just add one more lane. that'll fix it for sure

[@chrisw443]

Well shit looks like your gonna need a subway line to relieve pressure off that light rail line. The governor isn't gonna like paying for that.... Better bundle in a highway or something.