Greenacre

[ecoba]

Yes, it would be hard for the farmer to get anywhere.

Such an interesting discovery! I've always wondered about that car glitch. Do you have a modd that automatically changes your streets to brick? I've noticed that they're all brick in Greenacre, or is it just the SAM?

Ethan

It also gives me pleasure to bring us to page 20 of your wonderful MD, Matt!

[JBSimio]

Matt,

I must apologize for not getting here and commenting more often this week!  You've shown so many things during your time in OSITM and, while I've peeked in, I've never had the time to say as much as I would have liked to.     I enjoyed seeing the transportation map all pieced together like that... it's an idea I might just steal soon, if you don't mind.  It's made me interested to see how well (or not) the Covington network really functions as a whole.  The update with the rail lines was also very interesting and I've studied the maps several times since you first posted them.  Firefighter Creek was a great rural update with pictures 16.4 and 16.6 being two of my favorites there.  And finally, thank you for the little Photoshopping lesson.  I'm still not sure that I have those options with the software I use, but it gave me a couple ideas that I may be able to use as a work around solution.  I'm sure we'll find out soon enough! 

Excellent stuff all around, my friend... 
JB

[Jmouse]

Tricky little now-you-see-it, now-you-don't demonstration. Very clever, indeed, and definitely a keeper for future reference!

The mosaic is excellent and shows just how much time and thought you have put into Greenacre. The parks are especially interesting, in part because of their locations. They effectively break up the monotony of endless development while providing accessible recreation areas for residents. I think it would be safe to say their placement is very logical, if that makes any sense. IMO, moving or eliminating any one of them would disturb the balance and stability of the scene.

You have done a fine job during your week in OSITM, and I have thoroughly enjoyed these enlightening glimpses of Greenacre. Hope you will continue along the same lines when you're back in the trenches! And maybe we could even have a little chat about showing some population data...

Later...
Joan

*Edit* I almost forgot you asked about the Salt Grass Trail ride. It is the oldest event of its kind - this {Link} will give you a bit of background and give you an idea of the enormous crowds it draws. Also, February in and around Houston can be pretty raw, cold and wet. Weather conditions are not always ideal by any means, but it doesn't dampen the spirits of the participants a bit.

And FYI, in the era I spoke of, there was a Fat Stock Show in conjunction with the Rodeo - it is now called the "Livestock Show."

Hope you enjoy it, and just Google "Salt Grass Trail" to see more sites.

[Battlecat]

Clever idea using the eraser to touch up the images like that.  That mosaic is very impressive, great looking industrial area in that city.

[tooheys]

Matt, a great week you are having here. The rural update is well done with some great detail shown there 

Interesting trick with the mosaics and sure to be of interest to many. Your mosaic itself is very nice indeed. The parks are well laid out and I really like the canal work and its use with the buildings at the bottom of the mosaic. 

Great work

Dave

[threestooges]

Replies:
-Ethan (ecoba): Well, as I understand, it's not so much a glitch as that a lot only needs one tile of its front to touch a road in order to be connected. That's the way it worked here. The brick streets came way before the SAM. It is actually a brick street mod from ST by ardecila as I recall. It has since been incorporated into the SAM. I liked that it blended well with the BSC park paths I use too. Thanks for the Page 20 welcome too.


-Jon (JBSimio): Absolutely no need to apologize. Always good to see you here too. It's been a fun week, and I'm glad you enjoyed it too. It allowed me to catch up on a few overdue things I promised to get to, and let me just get back into playing again (ok, also gave me a reason to get to it). I'd love to see the transport maps for Covington. They take a bit of time to get all put together, but they seem to be worth it in the end. That horse farm in 16.6 seems to be catching everyone's eye. I should thank Battlecat for letting me steal... I mean be inspired by, his ranch style. Glad you found the mosaic tutorial interesting. If your photo program does layers it should be able to do this if you make the smaller bits each their own layer. I'll keep an eye out for new Covington mosaics.


-Joan (Jmouse): Happy to help with the editing trick. It's not anything that groundbreaking, but it's useful. As I mentioned on MSN, the thought that goes into Greenacre is more of a story of the tile. I don't plan where things will go in any great detail. I'll pick a few attributes to go certainly places and let the rest of the city fill itself in as it seems to fit. Even though Robin might disagree, I added at least one of those parks in there because I was tired of looking at the sea of industry. That may actually what brought the residential areas moving in closer, as they seemed to fit then.

I had a look at the Salt Grass Trail and that looks like a really neat way to get into the Livestock/rodeo spirit. I liked what the article said about it being fast enough to get you there while being slow enough to think about where you're going. Must be fun to see. Thanks for sharing that.


-Battlecat: Thanks. It really helps clean up any lingering bits that don't quite sync up. I also used it to clean up some smoke plumes from some of the factories in that mosaic as well. I've been trying to develop the area to be a sea of manufacturing and warehouses. Distribution centers and the like. It seems like it's just about there. I'll also have to show the high tech sector too sometime here soon. Perhaps I'll make that the next update. Always good to see you here.


-Dave (tooheys): Glad you enjoyed Dave! Good to hear you liked the rural update. I've seen what you can do with it, and that is quite impressive. I'll be sure to expand on the canals there in a future update. There's some interesting industry, commercial and residential development that's all taking place around there. Take it easy.


So to wrap up this week here, as I said at the start, the people here are what help to make this site such a great place. With that, here are the people who have helped bring Greenacre where it is today. Whether it is one comment or many, it's always good to hear from you, and get an idea about things that catch your eye here.

Post count as of yesterday (Saturday November 21, 2009)


Thanks for visiting, and thanks for an excellent week here in OSITM.

Avatars collected courtesy of Jmouse. If your avatar was not included and you have posted, it was either that we couldn't find one or that you didn't have one when we went looking. Still, thanks for stopping by and leaving a message.


-Matt

[Jmouse]

Excellent finale, Matt! I knew you'd come up with something clever, though!

Later...
Joan

[TheTeaCat]

Well done Matt
A really enjoyable week I had (lurking mostly ) but I really did keep an eye on what you were up to.

I even learned a few things ( never thought of searching for "half cars " in my mosaics.)
The revisit to Firefighter creek was great but I too will admit I'm not that keen on the colour of the PW

Thanks for the tutorial too - very handy

All in all it looks like you had a great week as part of the 4in1

Untill the next time

regards
Derry

[Earth quake]

what I'm going to write for reply?
A congratulations for your 385 messages (388 now) and see your work on your MD.

[JoeST]

oh man, so AWESOME!!

I am pretty shocked that I only posted once.

Fantastic mosaic on the last page

cant wait for more

Joe

[rooker1]

Very interesting little graph, Matt.
I hope your hectic month has relaxed for you a bit by now.
I hope to see you reply to my post soon. 

Robin 

[Bobbi]

Intertesting regional map.

[Battlecat]

I greatly enjoyed this past week, and I hope to see more soon as always!  Hard to believe how many posts I've made here.   

[Tomas Neto]

Wow, great idea put the avatars icons on the regional map!!! Fantastic work!!! 

[danielcote]

Nice stats and map! I like that inland lake! It must be very furtile soil around it seeing how many farms are around it. 

[ecoba]

A great finale, Matt.

Greenacre is really a beautiful island, and looks like it would be a lovely place to live.

Looks like my avatar was not found, but it's fine, I'm just glad that you got chosen for this special privelige of 4-in-1!

Ethan

[scott1964]

Great job 

[threestooges]

Replies:
-Joan (Jmouse): Thanks Joan, I couldn't have done it without you. Thanks for going on that little avatar hunt for me. That was a great help. Glad to see the results were worth the work.


-Derry (TheTeaCat): Great to see you Derry. Lurking or not it's always good to know one's work is appreciated (though seeing the response is always good). I hadn't thought of the half car thing until I had one staring me in the face. It's a rather easy fix though. The trick is spotting them sometimes. Firefighter's Creek is one of the older areas of Greenacre, and as such hasn't been updated in a while. I have a few tricks to try with the water though (one of which can be seen back here during my first OSITM thing). Perhaps it'll get an update in the future. It was a fun week, glad to hear you enjoyed it.


-Vivien (Earth quake): Whatever you choose to write, it's always good to see you here. Thanks for the congratluations, and hopefully there will be many more posts to come.


-Joe (JoeST): Glad you liked it. It took a little while to put together, but that was mainly work for the tutorial. You won't have to wait much longer. An update is here.


-Robin (rooker1): I found the graph really interesting to put together. With Joan's help I've been keep track of who posted when and it's really interesting to see how it breaks downa nd all the people who have played a part in bringing Greenacre where it is today. I haven't forgotten about your challenge yet, and now that finals are over, I might have some time to properly ponder it. Hopefully you'll enjoy this in the meantime.


-Bobbi: Thanks! I thought it was a nice touch.


-Battlecat: Glad to hear it. I have one more thing for this update that you might find interesting, or hopefully useful. Not sure how far along you are with your light rail lines, but hopefully you'll enjoy. 37 (now 38) posts is nothing small in the least, and it's been great to see what you have to say for each of them.


-Tomas Neto: Glad you liked it. I'd seen it done before, and it seemed like a fitting way to thanks everyone who's been here. Take it easy.


-Daniel (danielcote): Thanks Daniel. The valley area there is very fertile. That lake was formed by rainfall that had cascaded down the surrounding hills. There were a couple updates specifically devoted to the valley area back here in the first few updates. If you haven't seen them yet, have a look. There was plenty to see there.


-Ethan (ecoba): Thanks! You happen to have a place that you've seen so far that you like in particular? Sorry your avatar didn't make the list, but I couldn't find it when I made my check of things. I'll add it to the file though. never know when it might come in handy. Hope you enjoy today's update.


-Scott1964: Thanks, and welcome to Greenacre! Hope to see you around more.




Whew, It's almost been a year here. So much we've seen, and yet so much still to see. Good to see you're still here though. I thought today we'd take a trip out to the Capitol Corridor Railway. It's the light rail system that serves most of the center of the island.

17.01


Here's a copy of the route map for the railway. It will help get you oriented as we shoot through the stations here.

17.02


Since we're here already, we'll start out at the Howard H. Fine Transportation Hub. I'm sure you remember this place from when I showed you around our new government sector here. They done some work around there since then and now there is a separate entrance to the Orange Line just off to the side. It helps for the locals who don't want to fight through regular passenger rail traffic to get to their trains, about 260 to be presice according to usage reports.

17.03


Just down the rails a bit, and the first station that we hit once we get back above ground, is Palisades Parkway. This is the gateway to a local little industrial park. There's not much parking in the area, so the workers who at least are close to the station take the train when they can. The station fields about 113 passengers according to the last report.

17.04


A straight shot down the line is the Balboa Blvd. station. It's next to a commuter rail stop and sees slightly improved numbers at 224. It's also directly adjacent to a commercial office center.

17.05


Going down the line a bit more the tracks cross over the commuter line which runs straight as an arrow through the area and then branches off to a new spur. The line crosses  back over the commuter line, right near another commuter station. This is the Manhattan Rd. Station, home to the popular, and well used, Manhattan Transfer. 298 people regularly pass through this area.

17.06


Further down this spur is a station that sees no passengers, in fact there's nothing around it. The trains don't even run there, yet. So why is it here? The railway owners are expecting swift development and, similar to the way Los Angeles' Pacific Electric financed its growth and stimulated LA's development by building streetcar access to places that hadn't been developed yet, so to does this line run here. For now though, it's just a lonely station at the end of the line. Moving right along.

17.07


Back up on the main line now, the next station along the way is Newport Street. A few more commercial offices and a few smaller shops make this a popular spot on the way home. The station apparently receives 1732 passengers on average.

17.08


Next up is Seal Street. With a passenger volume of 373 it's less popular than Newport, but it still plays host to a number of  services including a nearby theatre. It's not uncommon to see folks dressed up for a night out sitting next to folks on their way to the store for a carton of milk. It's certainly easier to time the ride here than in you drove. The route runs remarkably efficiently. Possibly because the drivers are really quick during there station stops. I've seen a few times when a lady would be getting off here, evening gown trailing behind her, and getting snagged in the closing doors. Good thing it slides right out. The driver would be disappointed if he had to stop for such a delay as someone dragging alongside the train.

17.09


A quick detour runs down to the Union Station station (yes, brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department) where passengers can catch a train going region wide. Most folks just drive to the station and as of the last check this station is barely even used (aka: 2). Not sure why, but hey, it's there if they need it. As of now, no trains run the route, but there is a subway connection in the works to expand the system down this way.

17.10


Since it wasn't in the image I had of the station itself, here's one of Union Station at night:

17.11


This next stop is the busiest one on the line. The Church Ave station serves as a transfer stop between all three lines. Consquently, it has an average usage of 4,525. We'll transfer to the Green line here and take the full loop around.

17.12


Heading clockwise around the loop we first come to the Daylight Avenue stop. with 3,226 passengers it caters to a major residential area. Many residents take the Green Line clockwise from here to get to work, but a number do still hop on the Orange Line at Church Avenue.

17.13


Next we enter a long straight-away along Huntington Avenue. There are three stations along this part: Huntington Avenue South, Huntington Avenue, and Huntington Avenue North.

Huntington South stops at a popular little plaza. It hosts a farmer's market every so often and is a popular place during the Christmas season. Right now they're not set up, but it's a nice place to visit if you get the chance. You've seen it before back during that photo tour promotion thing we did way back when. On average it'll be visited by 2,701 people.

17.14


Huntington Avenue is a commercial office stop plain and simple. The towers line one side of the line and the sunken railroad tracks follow it on the other. 1,848 passengers.

17.15


Huntington North is on the edge of the office district that gives the Green Line the nickname "Commerce Loop", but there are still a few commercial services around. It's mostly apartments and condos though. 939 passengers on average use this station. Things seem to be in fairly close walking distance though.

17.16


Jutting up just a bit further into the residential area is the Stanford Court loop. It took a bit of land but it was faster to run the train around a loop here than to try to reverse it and switch it to the return line. Though the cars are set up to be operated from either end, the driver would still have had to have walked the length of the train to get things going again. It's much easier, and safer to keep the driver at the controls and things moving forward. 506 passengers pass through this station on a regular basis.

17.17


Slipping back down onto the main loop, we hit the two industrial stops in the area, each with a 277 passenger average. The first one is Hopkins Rd. Not much to say about it except that there are several of those fancy high tech industries around here. I don't know what it is they do, but their buildings are always squeaky clean.

17.18


Down the line a bit more is Crocker Dr. there are a few small shops that have popped up around here to take advantage of the industrial workers who pass through the station twice a day. The bakery on the corner there has some great muffins and cupcakes.

17.19


Running back to the Church Avenue transfer station, we'll grab a Blue Line train down the Caboose Spur, so named for the station at the end (Caboose Street), but we'll get there in a bit. First up is Shiela Street. It's a smaller station, but with the odd assortment of buildings around it, it still plays host to 657 passengers.

17.20


Down the line a bit, and around a couple of curves is Tucker Drive. With so many apartments surrounding it, you'd think there would be more usage of this station. Still 160 people is pretty reasonable. It'll keep the line going, that's for sure.

17.21


Lastly, sitting at the end of the line and ending abruptly in a park, is the Caboose Street station. With 126 passengers running through it, Caboose Street lacks the loop seen up by Stanford Ct. With so few people on the line, it's just easier to reverse the train's direction and run a simple point-to-point route between here and Church Avenue.

17.22


So, having taken that whole run, here's a quick breakdown of how the traffic load is spread. Many people still use their cars, but as the graph shows, significant pedestrian and light rail traffic help keep the streets from becoming parking lots. The top graph is without vehicle traffic shown, the bottom graph adds it in for perspective.

17.23


Lastly, before we wrap things up here, here's some proof that a transit system can be run profitably.

17.24


Hope you enjoyed that tour of the Capitol Corridor Railway. It's a fun little system and it works pretty well.
-Matt

[Nexis4Jersey]

Nice update , but i think some of your Transitways need re-terrforming they look alittle unstable 

~Corey

[metarvo]

It looks like you've got a good passenger rail/GLR system going, Matt, and I enjoyed the backstory as much as I did the pictures.    Keep up the good work!