FIX TRAFFIC and make Interesting City Layouts with Road Hierarchy - Cities Skylines 2

[@negativespace3233]

For some reason my immediate reflex was to start suburban gridlock immediately out of the freeway, and my cities were failing because of it. This is so helpful it almost seems like it should be common sense. Thank you!

[@mewr11]

"Cities player plans" is fantastic. Absolutely love it.

[@shaneintheuk2026]

It’s not a knock off of City Planner Plays of course 🤣🤣

[@homeuser1478]

cities player plans ;)

[@YUMBL]

And I do ;)

[@Moshimulations]

​@@YUMBLhehe we know where that comes from ;)

[@Felipeah95]

I never laughed so hard watching any cities skylines content :D

[@aaron62688]

Hillarious!

[@Kalabajooie]

I see what you did there. Wink emoji.

[@five_weeks]

Another excellent video from Cities Player Plans

[@nanatsureina]

oh wait it's called that? I thought it was supposed to be Cities Planner Plays 😅😅

[@Alpha-Eridani]

@@nanatsureina no, because that's the other guy

[@YUMBL]

Hi I’m YUMBL, a cities player who plans!

[@jonleibow3604]

@@nanatsureina Nope, Cities Player Plans is YUMBL's nickname

[@JimmyFisher]

great bit immediately subscribed

[@kleinerprinz99]

One annotation to your European style city: Most European City Cores are Historical Old Towns with lots of Sightseeing and they will not have a lot of tall building, skyscraping so only a few and rest of the taller buildings including apartments will be in a ring or distributed in districts around the city centre. Cheers. But the spider wheel looks really nice. PS: Your American layout was really convincing, too.

[@inyobill]

And, of course, heavy traffic is usually routed around using ring roads, and analogous.

[@fingerdrop]

I was feeling lost in the new cities. Even though this is core, this helped center my current build. thanks as always Yum

[@Maxmilion6004]

out of all the road hierarchy videos i have watched this broke it down so easily for me to understand. thank you for making this

[@tinear4]

I don’t have the system performance yet to dig into this game, but it really feels like C:S2 has given better support for road hierarchy through the decision to not tie road unlocks to overall population.

[@pjasparagus]

I like you’re series that’s called cities player plans, that would be my favorite series of your channel.

[@Anderson_LS]

I noticed that this system works under a certain amount of sims. When your population grows over 150k the income traffic from the freeway just breaks the first intersection in the city. The first intersection on the arterial after a freeway is a weak point.

[@YUMBL]

Your arterial may now require the capacity of a freeway. Contextually that first intersection now deserves to be an interchange.

[@jefffinkbonner9551]

One way (pun intended) of future proofing that is to make your arterials parallel one-way streets. There are way less turns, and the intersections are simplified. 3 lanes provide plenty of flow. The block in between can either be a heavy rail line or a classic city block. Or you can have the one ways two blocks apart with a local street for commercial in between. These lend pretty well to tram lines. I don’t know if this would help, but having a freeway exit at the edge of town go only to a passenger train station with tons of parking so that tourists can get onto your mass transit into town. Newcomers will drive their car to their new residence, so those population booms will still be a traffic wave.

[@carstarsarstenstesenn]

I haven't watched Yumbl in a while, there's something so comforting about these videos :)

[@thembones1895]

YUMBL don't rush or sweat the granularity in your data. I have been listening to you present road hierarchy literally for years now, and here I still am. =)

[@leftcoastfunk]

Great simple descriptions of road hierarchy, with three classic examples YUMBL!!! In CS1, mastering proper road hierarchy is one of the single most important things a player can possibly do to positively influence their traffic flow - and thus the viability of their city overall - and I see it being no less important in CS2 It's a much more difficult concept to master than it is to understand, so I always appreciate when creators such as yourself take the time to cover the basics in such an easy way to understand and put into practice

[@Zreezy]

Fantastic video, as always, Yumbl!

[@joshuasims5421]

Your twitch city looks incredible! I love the circular design.

[@vadmal5210]

This is all about essentials! You can't emphasis this enough! Thank you

[@shaneintheuk2026]

On the subject of severed roads. In the UK they often still exist but have literally been blocked with a barrier or sidewalk (pavement in the uk).

[@marlopainter8246]

Brilliant video! It welcomes newer people, as well as refreshes players that may have to dust off their building skills. I need this. Thank you!

[@ericnstuff]

this video is incredibly helpful. following the basic principles have made planning so much more exciting.

[@iepplays5038]

I have finally understood road hierarchy, thank you for the explanation!

[@tomasa-m5643]

Love that European style, really shows the circles from the CBD to the Rural-Urban Fringe very distinctly.

[@jiraya83]

I'm archtect and your explanation was wonderfull, the game is terrific, wish you the best

[@rileywhetstone1755]

Thank you for your time and energy in making these videos!😃

[@redbug3696]

I agree, it ain't easy!

[@julianafachini35]

Você é um ótimo professor, finalmente entendi como planejar as ruas!! Thank you!

[@Pratalax]

Yes! Always bringin' the chill fresh beats! Hahaha "Cities Player Plans" is a great title xD

[@icsde2002]

0:21 "10k population, 15k population, 20k population on the way to 30k population; you start to notice" that your damn pc its suffering and that you're playing in 10 fps. I think you ment to say that.

[@rodrigobola]

Amazing layout! ill start my city again because Im struggling with traffic so bad!!!!

[@shaneintheuk2026]

Well done Yumbl. There’s a whole new generation to educate on all the things you covered on CS1. If all your videos I found the original of this the most useful.

[@unything2696]

90k people and growing - this game is fun! Love the tips and the humor! I'd also like to state: The new upzoning feature lets you fix a lot of mistakes. Or just hide them.

[@unything2696]

I mean upzoning to a Higher density as well as upgrading existing roads with the new flex tools.

[@upchessbyabzolute]

In between arterial and freeway I’d put parkway. High speed, no access to business, but has ground parclo interchanges with freeways (other than that, it’d be limited access)

[@inyobill]

"Plan"??? Surely, you jest, sir! Great to see new content from you! Looking forward to continue learning lots from you.

[@meistarkus]

Great video! Was arefresher for me, but it felt like seeing it for the first time.

[@therealcryss]

This was a very helpful video and well executed. Thank you, Sir!

[@didelphida]

please continue with this layout! I want to see how you build further and how you upgrade the streets because i am a bit lost :´)

[@YUMBL]

Stay tuned ;)

[@jeramiahcoffey103]

The video we needed, but didn't deserve. Much anticipated! :D

[@adeptgaming101]

These road layouts are really cool!

[@iceice1374]

This vid is really good. Very useful. Keep it up!

[@krisculin9679]

Once again, a great presentation on road hierarchy. You always simplify the subject, and it makes it so easy to follow. I've always tried to follow the principles but it can be difficult when you are starting the city and have limited roads available. But I plan with my next city to try even harder. But as you mentioned, the # of lanes don't necessarily define the type of road in the hierarchy - it's really the # of connections. I have to remember that.

[@robsadler5605]

Great visual of road hierarchy. Just the reminder I needed to begin my CS2 journey.

[@42orbit]

Thaks for sharing experienced advices, very helpful and nice content

[@Armydog-wc3hd]

Thanks for the road hierarchy video....this should help my hi pop city traffic problems.

[@TJusnow]

I’m currently building a city on this map. I’m glad you chose it lol.

[@KellyWu04]

I'm glad you touched on pedestrian paths! Road heirachy is nice until you have to walk.

[@Pystro]

A correction about 2:01. "Access" can refer to two things: Connectivity (within the road network) OR access to property (off the road system). The graph is labeled as "access to property", but in reality both change in lockstep as you go through the 4 road types. Connectivity means things like grade separation, block size, modal filters (on the ends of side roads touching a certain road), if there's junctions with a solid median (which governs if vehicles can turn from a certain driving direction to the left hand side of a road and vice versa, ... and other network-focused factors. Access to property means if vehicles can stop on the road to load/unload, how many driveways there are, and how often these features get used. Stuff that relates to the properties that border a certain road. In cities:skylines (2) it *IS* important to build your road network with connectivity in mind (as you explain in this video). But it is also important to choose the zones correctly. If you have a road that you can not afford to get choked down or backed up (which is often a faster road, but it can also be true for certain vital pieces of 2-lane road), then you'll want to avoid commercial or industry zones along that road. Instead you'll want to prefer office zones, or you can make sure that the zoned buildings face another road (place a fence or path between the road and the zoning). Also, avoid putting bus stops on that road (those lazy drivers must be taking a whole cigarette break at every stop or something.)

[@brnbabyburn]

Great video, got a sub.

[@BalalaGames]

I look at your magnificent planned road hierarchy and cities and I wish paradox make diagonal buildings a thing...

[@YUMBL]

Me too!

[@t-trainCEOofOhana]

Surely we can get assets for them?

[@YUMBL]

No additional mods or assets yet. I would want them to grow in from zoning as well.

[@t-trainCEOofOhana]

@@YUMBL I know we don’t have them yet, I’m saying in the future.

[@abdulazizalmalki1346]

Your Twitch city layout reminds me of Amsterdam, looks very cool

[@Sean-ps3ec]

City Players Planning... LOVE IT

[@ultimakuma]

Amazing as always 👐🏻

[@YUMBL]

Thank you :)

[@KingRobertIofScots]

You have the exact same voice as Tack from The Thief and the Cobbler. (Good video too!)

[@stephenpughz]

Thanks for the info!! I need to upgrade some of my roads to arterials!

[@ytshapa]

would love to see traffic overlay and how cs2 traffic react to stuff , great video!

[@Starmanw422007]

Hi Yumbl, from Allenstown, NH.

[@purple_stop_sign]

What about building wise, like what zones would you put on Arterial roads?

[@Replix-123]

commercial

[@krkhnh]

Always love to watch road hierarchy videos from you. Is something need to be changed when road hierarchy meets high density building area?

[@YUMBL]

Transit will help. But dont be afraid to modify a layout as necessary.

[@Stormfox93]

You probably are familiar with Biffa and his idea of 'lane mathematics', in which he calculates the number of lanes depending on the number of directions at the next intersection. You said the number of lanes says something about capacity. The latter I prefer much more in road layout design because if one lane can offer enough road capacity to facilitate (for example) two directions at the next intersection, there is no need to have an additional lane.

[@Nick-nt1sb]

Each time I watch one of these videos, I realize that my city probably won't work later on, so I start a new one. I had four cities now and never got over 5k residence. One problem I consistently have, though, is that my money is always negative. My cities wouldn't have survived for long like that anyway.

[@maxoutthemayhem]

Thank you for the breakdown! Very helpful

[@tranarchist6335]

I usually just add road hierarchy after the fact when certain roads become busy, my city is 90% alleys built with the grid tool

[@tobiasalexander4491]

You had me at "cities player plans" :)

[@kitkat2407]

-_- okay I now realise a lot of mistakes in my road network. Thanks for your video.

[@Greybell]

I'm surprised you created sharp local roads instead of curving them in your cities but it makes sense because CS won't let you build on curved roads. I wanted to make my city look beautiful with curved roads but I can't properly build zones because the zoning grid breaks (even on rectangular straight roads too annoyingly).

[@saladuit]

This vid was great. A tip would be to highlight the different road levels in colours. Will there also be a tutorial on how to make use of road hierarchie with public transport in mind?

[@YUMBL]

Thank you! Transit video will happen in the future :)

[@LAPKMMEX]

why every times I try too put a roads name CS2 change it, as I keep going. Is this not like part one?

[@robdetrick]

I would love to see you build a New Jersey Jughandle or a Michigan Left intersection. I've tried, but the traffic prefers to make a right and then do a U-Turn in the middle of the road. Perhaps I'm missing something.

[@YUMBL]

I’ll have to try em! Ive made all of these in cs1 to great effect

[@squid7479]

Road hiarachy is good solution in real life. But in the game it’s not. Traffic only becomes problem when there are trucks. And no matter how big your road is, they will just clog the single lane on the road because of the game algorithm. Only commercial and industrial buildings generate a lot trucks. They both go to the nearest hub. For each certain amount of commercial or industry buildings, build enough harbors/train cargo stations, that support them. Build industry and commercial zones separately to minimize the truck density in a single area.

[@YUMBL]

Road hierarchy isn’t actually related to how big a road is.

[@maomaomaimaimao]

bro picked a fight with someone who designs cities for fun

[@AshKast]

Very cool. I just downloaded CS2 for free using my game pass. And can't wait to try out your suggestions.

[@simplymarie5627]

wow thank you so much!

[@CodyKiker]

I do this and I still get traffic games, barely at 12k pop. I have three arterials coming from the highway, tons of buses/routes, taxis, I don't build buildings directly on the arterials, I put down parking lots... yet either morning or afternoon rush hour I get a jam.

[@Bansheeflyr]

Yumbl, can you talk about zoning types though within the context of the hierarchy? How do you know how much commercial is too much, and where should it go? Where does it make sense to put medium density residential relative to low density residential?

[@YUMBL]

Stay tuned ;)

[@Tegridyvs]

Hey Yumble would you ever do a video on how to properly zone? I’ve noticed myself getting better with road hierarchy, however I’m still struggling when it comes to “proper zoning” meaning even with the correct road layouts, I still end up with massive back ups when dealing with industrial zoning. I’ve tried to manage it with one way roads but even then it eventually fails.

[@YUMBL]

Stay tuned!

[@gavin.d.m]

Very useful, thank you 😊

[@Uloncl]

1:46 that graph implies there are types of road between each main type, and we all should know the issue with stroads

[@YUMBL]

Stay tuned for another episode in the near future :)

[@GiblixStudio]

when making pedestrian walkways. isn't it possible to create a tunnel underneath arterial roads etc to maintain both flows of traffic types?

[@mamuf]

Definitely an option, or an overpass. You can always rebuild it that way if the traffic gets too high and has to stop too much due to the crossings.

[@stummelschwanzzwergtyrann]

Hello everyone, in my totally grided cs2 city cars are not really interested in road hierarchy. Although I have aterials, cars seem to dislike them (maybe because of the lights) and rather take the collectors and even local roads. This way they have to turn alot, but they don't care. Some routes are even real detours where they turn right, left, left, right, instead of going straight. But what drives me really nuts is the lane switching when traffic gets heavier. This brings traffic to a complete halt as these switchers block at least 2 lanes.

[@Fankine78]

How to do pedestrian pathways i don't have that option in my game ?

[@Garycarlyle]

Looks good. Like the natural flow. Why are you not using height too, however? Overpasses and underpasses. Pedestrian crossings really slow the traffic especially as your city gets bigger.

[@YUMBL]

Thank you! As the city gets bigger I probably will. It wont be necessary at first though.

[@marcosda4th92]

Figured out my city was kinda doomed from the start when i noticed the starting tiles had a 2 lane highway instead of starting on a 4 lane 😞 (Modded map, it has a 4 lane, just didnt start on it.

[@selina0]

That works only later, at begin I don’t have the money to build or plan it or would there be other solution? Mostly I plan it later and destroy the old village, industrial and commercial areas.

[@YUMBL]

The plan is in your mind. Build it as you get the money to afford it!

[@Tango_Mike]

Cities Player Plans! Oh man, I freakin love this community! 😂😂😂😂

[@richard-leech]

Excellent video, thanks for sharing! Would you consider b-lining to unlock large roads asap so you can use those for arterials instead of medium roads, and then medium for collectors, and local roads instead of alleys? Thanks!

[@YUMBL]

I am generally a proponent of least amount of force necessary. So enlarge roads as needed, but I rarely use the large roads outside of interchanges. And even then its only to optimize lane math for turn lanes.

[@andrewspielman1921]

0:09 or in my case: buy the game, find out it’s not supported for Mac, boot Windows through Parallels, launch the game, game won’t boot, try a million things, launch again, computer crashes, takes it to a geek squad, they get parallels back up and running, then I promptly delete Steam and will sadly never get to play it. I really hope they come out with a version supported with Mac.

[@faustinpippin9208]

I just put a compact stack interchange on every intersection and put pedestrian bridges over roads and remove pedestrian crossings traffic solved :)

[@chinitanako]

Can you do public transpo location and their stop distance?

[@YUMBL]

Stay tuned ;)

[@EliteInExile]

What about cities built on islands? I've decided to challenge myself by building on Archipelago Haven and I can't figure out or decide on how to connect the city on either side of a highway.

[@Palpatine001]

Looks great Yumbl but I see one large flaw, with that many secondary roads connected to the main roads we are going to get a very bad case of rat running to skip congestion at any pinch points on the main roads and intersections. Pedestrian Roads, Bus Roads (not available yet (with zones allowed either side), or blocking one end of a secondary road which end up creating islands or with Barcelona - the Super Lots help stop the rat running otherwise experienced. Grids continue to exist but this is more for active modes, emergency services and transit rather than the car which of course can become liabilities in urban areas. For everyone else that narrow alley way street with no footpaths. This is fine and perfectly acceptable as the pedestrians would actually walk in the middle of the street and cars reduced to 20km/h. Typically this lays down the foundation for a Shared Road as we got in CS1 but these are not in CS2 yet. Remember Streets which alley ways are in CS2 are very different to roads which are with the centre lines running down the middle.

[@mamuf]

The traffic AI should consider the complexity of the roads, too, so it should try to avoid the tiny streets because they're slow, and have lot of intersections. And if they'd still cut through then to avoid traffic on the larger roads, you can resort to making these areas districts with the Gated Community and/or Speed Bumps policies.

[@Palpatine001]

@@mamuf Should and could are two very different things given human behaviour

[@thereal_onelargemammal]

When you're placing your connectors and local roads, are you thinking about zoning, services, service coverage, traffic flow or just see how it looks and fill in the blanks later?

[@YUMBL]

I’m really only thinking about an interesting design that flows with the land within the space given. The reason and function come later. Like so many cities that change over time (all of them).

[@LukeClimbing]

This is a massive help thank you! Would you zone on an arterial? If so what?

[@YUMBL]

You’re welcome! And arterial in town, perhaps. Mixed use is good for a somewhat “main street” feel. I would avoid zoning on arterials that connect distinct towns though.

[@MaxWalterBlog]

You explained the "Karlsruhe" Prinzip🥰

[@lordbirb]

how did you enable the contour lines?

[@YUMBL]

Button is to the right of the snapping tools. Looks like lumpy concentric circles.

[@nilscibula5320]

Hi. This is a wonderfull video. Thanks for it!!! But I've an adiitional question: What is a good zoning? Comercial at the arterials and/or the collectors?

[@YUMBL]

Thank you! Stay tuned ;)

[@kennerYT]

I’ve been trying to figure out; if I made an estate with housing (essentially a branch dead end road off of the local roads) will the only traffic going there be the residents? Seems like the game is advanced enough for this.

[@YUMBL]

That is correct. One could build a neighborhood on a dead end, or even a loop and no through traffic would use it.

[@sdidar39]

Hey great video as always. I don't suppose you could share any of the save games you showed?

[@YUMBL]

Where do others generally post the files?

[@justchilling9442]

Thanks super helpful 😊

[@ДенисМалышок]

I do not think that pedestrians should cross arteries just like that. I think with heavy traffic, it will leads cars to stop over and over again to let them pass, which will lead to the traffic jam. Instead you can build the bridges or tunnels for them letting them pass freely .

[@YUMBL]

I guess we’ll see as the city progresses :)

[@KomradeDoge]

Will you also be going over how to "fix" a city that wasn't preplanned like this? I'm worried my current city is cooked already and would rather not start over completely.

[@YUMBL]

Starting over with new knowledge i actually what I recommend, depending on how fundamentally flawed a build currently is.

[@Nico-cs8xf]

I have one question about the intersections where did you place Traffic lights and where not?

[@YUMBL]

Traffic lights will auto add on the four lane roads. Other than that I didnt add any. I will almost certainly do a micro managing traffic episode :)

[@harvbegal6868]

I wonder if I can retrofit my city or if its completed borked and I should just start over.

[@YUMBL]

Starting over with a plan in mind is often a good way to go :)

[@jarnix2]

7:48 : you just built pedestrian paths connecting alleys (alleys are without sidewalks) and you tell us that pedestrians will use them lol

[@YUMBL]

Peds absolutely walk on the alleys. Have you tried them?

[@xenomorph420]

@3:36, @4:47, and @6:19... assuming you had the choice of any road to place and in the same context but also werent worried about having to teach anything, would you have picked a different road for arterial, collector and local roads. Again, your not worried about having to represent things but rather legitimately follow road hierarchy with the complete collection of roads CS2 has to offer to pick from.

[@YUMBL]

The local roads may become regular roads w sidewalks, but thats all.