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Forum:Official collaboratives/Gobras City - SW transport options
Summary
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There has been discussion on Discord regarding new tram alignments in southwest Gobras City. The incongruous Sanavir Airtrain has been removed, with the area pending some rework based on what's agreed for the wider area. So, does the area require additional transport infrastructure?
But, why - is there a need? Would it be unrealistic, what would be the driver for such an infrastructure investment? wangi (talk) 22:42, 2 December 2022 (UTC) |
Loading map... railway, subway, tram, potential tram alignments? |
Discussion
Please share you thoughts, to try and build up consensus on this development. Thanks/wangi (talk) 22:42, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
To give further context, the southwest region of Gobras City is being developed from a blank slate since August 2022 (initiated by Chazeltine). The Kilmeade-Tovena area is currently under development by Chazeltine, Squizie3 and Dono87. Previously, to quote from dono, "there seems to be an intent to stop development at district limits which does [sic] not seem reasonable. It seems we are also just attached to the inertia of the map when realistically there should be Easky-style suburbs south and west too." It's a flat region, ripe for development, even some predating Worldport (which seemed to be a more recent development around the 70s or 80s).
Further quotings:
- Criticisms of the previous Sanavir tram system: On the other hand, most transit makes a deficit, but some deficits are recognizable as unsustainble uses of resources compared to other transit projects that might lose slightly less money.
- Gadget-bahns built as demonstration projects eventually get removed if they are only for show/tourists/events and don't have some sustainable element of local demand
- The Wuppertal Suspension Railway is the main linear transit mode for a highly linear city of 350k+ people in a narrow valley
- The Seattle Monorail was never expanded, but still connects Seattle's biggest transit center (Westlake) to more than just the Space Needle. The entire Seattle Center/Queen Anne area is quite dense by American standards
- Given the abundant green space (and golf course!! not a great transit trip generator..), unless each "Phailoon City/Kalabag/etc Circle" is comprised of 50-story highrises the size of Sim City arcologies, which is unlikely given that only a few schools are separately mapped, it is unlikely for the Sanavir Airtrain to be even defecit-level sustainable.
- And that would be the case for a single airtrain loop, which would be just as feasible in protected bus lanes if this were in fact a model community - let alone with the recent and partially tunneled extension to Avawoon, which would need to be redone
- The SW developments spread over a large area that should be filled with dense development but is lacking good transit, so with the right justification light rail could make sense in this area.
- The problem is that (the existing) systems are too disjointed to form a network effect with too many transfer penalties.
- This could be mitigated by branching off of the existing West Meadows-Avawoon tramway to the west, perhaps along Independence Blvd to the main Independence station (with Squizie's proposal to make it an even more important hub), and from there perhaps branches to Tovena and Galaria
- The "too many" in this area comes from the Sanavir Airtrain, with an odd routing, duplicating Line 2 and an awkward shoe-horned connection to Avawoon station, which is not designed to be a high-volume transfer hub and would need to be 'redesigned'. Why is the Airtrain even a separate mode? Sanavir doesn't even look that dense compared to other 'model communities' in GC
Here's a draft map of a possible tram system integrating SV Airtram with the existing tram running from West Meadows to Avawoon:
(Quoting from Dono) For Sanavir and Tovena/Galaria, they could both form part of an extended SW area tram network as an expansion of the existing M-Line.
- 1 or 2 lines through Sanavir and Albedeer University leading to the massive metro/rail hub at Isaulk-Broad meadows as an effective circulator. From Avawoon and potentially a second from Galaria/Tovena through Old Tovena (which could be redrawn if it is in fact an 'old town)
- 1 or 2 lines from Galaria/Tovena along Independence Blvd (with TOD not empty fields) to the existing M-Line
- Perhaps retaining the existing M-Line and/or splitting destinations North to Avawoon East and South to West Meadows
Other recent plan variants include:
As for now, I have set up the tram infrastructure by drawing tram tracks as according to Squizie's recent plan. The Kilmeade area is still in development, so the Shino Creek-West Meadows area (southeast of Kilmeade station) is the main focus for now. Further detailing, such as track configurations and curves, are to be done over time once tram plans are more finalised.
Existing transportation in the area https://wiki.opengeofiction.net/util/route_relations.html?map=C/13/20.61501/86.63928
--Zhenkang (talk) 00:20, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
Just throwing in some views on the subject matter (I haven't read Zhenkangs post yet): Line M (what's called line 2 on the little map) was also present for a very long time already, and I think it's fine as is, connecting Avawoon East to West Meadows and serving a bunch of neighbourhoods along the way, feeding to the rail and metro lines. The only change that was (half) made was to move it slightly more towards the Avawoon Medical Center, which seems sensible.
In case of Sanavir, the whole area gives an experimental vibe to me, where developers wanted to 'fix' city issues by throwing some new (probably failed by now) concept at it. In that sense, the Sanavir Airtrain was quite fitting. However, it was way overbuilt for the mapped density. Even when potentially densifying those circles further, the area is still mostly parks. An elevated rail service, even if it were only gadgetbahn type 'pods', would just have been way too costly to build and maintain for the private developer of the area (a government would be even less likely to throw money at it, given it only benefits a single neigbourhood). But I'm also not sure if an at grade tram alignment would actually be a good alternative, because it doesn't fit well into the story. To me, it seems like a more localised and gadgetbahn-style form of transport makes somewhat sense, but it just has to be a lot cheaper than the previous elevated rail system. I'm specifically thinking of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ParkShuttle. Only downside is it's from 1999, which might have been too late for the Sanavir area to be developed. So if a ground pod type thing is nothing to go by, why not make it some bike lane paradise, which might have been a fitting form of 'new' transport when the area was developed? Overall, I don't think that a higher form of non-local transport (i.e. government built tram line) would be necessary for Sanavir itself.
For the other lines, I think especially an east-west line might make sense (although, not sure what route would be best), since there's no metro doing anything like that. A long north-south line on the other hand would in general just be paralleling rail or metro lines and might not be justified, also given Sanavir doesn't really need it. Squizie3 (talk) 00:32, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
So, in hindsight, I'm not too much in favour of the previously proposed tram through Sanavir to Broad Meadows. More east-west oriented lines would have my preference over north-south ones. I don't know yet which east-west alignment(s) would make most sense tbh. But maybe... this is all a bit too early to say, as it was the idea to have a tram network sprawling from the Kilmeade-Tovena area with some lines then continuing towards the area we're now talking about, but Kilmeade itself is still in development and no base tram network exists in Tovena either. Maybe instead of rushing through changes, we can for now just find a suitable replacement for Sanavir's airtrain (be it tram, bus, pod, lots of bikeways, or else), and do the tram network later? Squizie3 (talk) 00:57, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks both. I think it would lower the barrier to entry, if we can trim the Sanavir sections above. As stated, take it as a given that the Airtrain is gone and the area is being reworked. wangi (talk) 01:04, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
- It's possible that the tram through Sanavir could have taken over previous infrastructure meant for these gadgetbahns. An alternative tram route through the neighbourhood would have sufficed as an alternative perhaps to address residents' concerns about taking away a transport option.--Zhenkang (talk) 01:08, 3 December 2022 (UTC)