More roads are required, and a few roundabouts and junctions that aren’t non-Euclidean mindfucks. I place some tunnels to get cars moving straight from the top end to the bottom, bypassing the problem area entirely, but while that alleviates some of the strain, traffic continues to pile up. Trucks, shoppers, people going to work – everyone on this side of the city ends up stuck on Extremely Unpleasant Street at least once a day. Extremely Unpleasant Street, it turns out, is the point where an unholy mass of serpentine roads converge, creating a nexus of metal and rubber and agitated commuters.

Clicking on a road reveals all the different types of vehicles that use it, and then a line charts their entire route. The traffic routes map mode has me more thrilled than any map mode should. Why are people so obsessed with this road? Is there a hip new club nearby? Some handy new tools make it easier to find out. Pondering the conundrum in the bath, it dawns on me that I’ve been approaching the problem in entirely the wrong way – I’ve been trying to cure a symptom, when I should be trying to find the source. It’s so bad now that the land value is dropping and residents are starting to peace out. They’re creeping along timidly and stopping at junctions, so they must be a little bit nervous, but it’s only making Extremely Unpleasant Street more congested. As an extra precaution, I give the road a new name.Īs the cars continue to flood the blighted thoroughfare, I start to wonder if I’ve been overestimating just how scared cars are of stop signs. Diligently, I place signs everywhere to ward off unwelcome vehicles. In the complex tarmac ecosystem, these creatures are mortal enemies. And what are cars scared of? Stop signs, of course. I learned and in learning I toppled a whole city. However! I didn’t know anything about poisoning people with excrement, either. Being faced with this realisation as I stare at nothing but gridlock sort of bums me out. I don’t even drive, and when I use public transport, I lose myself in a sea of Twitter threads and Spotify playlists. There’s one major obstacle in my way: I lack the fundamental knowledge that would be useful to my citizens.

Instead of making things worse, I’m going to fix my city’s awful congestion problems and be hailed a hero of the people. But with the launch of the Mass Transit expansion, I’m turning over a new leaf.

I’ve allowed the dead to fester in their homes, I’ve turned off heating and electricity in the dead of winter, and once, I made an entire city drink its own poo. I've done a lot of terrible things in my two year quest to ruin as many lives as possible in Cities: Skylines.

Cities skylines transit map