Some of the basics:
1) New Transportation Option:
a) One Way Streets: Finally! You can create a realistic downtown relpica with one way streets, they not only double the road capacity but they ease congestion at intersections.
b) Avenues: Hell yes, I've been looking for soething like this since the days in SC2 when I would just lay two streets parrallel to each other in an attempt to create something like this (all I got was a bunch of traffic lights obviously)
c) Ground Level Highways: Another oh yeah. This is a nice complement to the elevated highway in that it is immensly cheper. It also means your roads are now the overpass which makes them prohbitive in tight quarters btu excelletn for logn speration commutes. (Note they also added T and cloverleaf interscetions as an independent construction option for both highway types)
d) Linking Transportation Types: Now maybe it was me but I could never go from a highway down to a road before. Now you can (just drag some Avenue tiles up to the highway and some road tiles up to the avenue).
e) Elevated Rail: I can build an "L"
. Anyway I like this immensly as it functions as an extension of the subway system while being much less expensive. It also is elevated so you can still pass roads underneath it. I haven't yet got a good system built (as my old cities have perfectly functional subways) but I am looking forward to it.f) Monorail: its not just for Disneyland. Suppossedly its much faster (and more likely tobe used by Sims) than conventional rails so it is the last word in inter-city transit. I want one just for the coolness factor.
g) Parking Garage its about freakin time. For those who hated having to place subway stations (and bus stations) everywhere because Sims could only walk to them here is the solution: A Park-In-Ride for hire. Damn I've already got like 10 of these in one of my residential burbs helping to move Sms onto Mass Transit in numbers that I ahven't seen since I could lay a block by block system in SC2K.
h) Toll Booth: Great concept, earn a little cash for a road the sims are already using. I don't mind the congestion hit (and its a big one) because I've either got capacity to spare or Mass Transit to force people onto. All that and it makes a little bit of money.
i) Ferries: Another awesome idea that just makes having cities connected by water better. you still can't send a bridge over the edge of a city boundry with water there but ferries do take trips along the entire body of water. Match ferry terminals with Bus stations/Subways/"L" and a Parking Garage...instant cross water transport network. It sure as hell is something other than bridges.
j) Route Query
Quite possibly the single greatest addition to the game. Now you can actually see which Sims go to work where and which route they take to get there. If you click on a road you see all the routes going through there which tells you an awful lot about how you need to move traffic off that road if it is too congested.
2) Other Tools
a) Building Style: Neat addition to be able to cycle the building style used y developers over the years.
b) Congestion/Volume/CommuteTiem Data views: Apparently they reworked the entire way the system handles job placement and route planning thus allwoing you a picture of where the traffic is and what it is doing. The Commute Time tool is great when you've got one way streets around.
c) Bridge Control: When you do build a bridge now you can control the style and height. This ensures a visually appealing bridges and ones that allow Ferries to move underneath them.
d) Make Historic and Labels/Signs: They're back...with a vengance. Thank You Maxis.
3) U-Drive It
I have had so much fun with the missions. They contain all the humor ofthe Maxis team (especially those related to the "Evil Dr. Vu") plus they serve real purpose. in addition to letting you have fun on the street level they can also be used to temporarily boost Mayor Ratings (or grab a quick buck doing dirty work).
The biggest, and best things, about U-Drive It is that the missions, once completed, can unlock reward buildings that otherwise wouldn't become available until much later. For example by completing the School bus Mission I gained access to the Private School when my city had not even reached 7K population.
