Port St Claire (#36)

[noahclem]

Stunning work on the bridge Willy    The mosaic is breathtaking! Enjoying the maps as always and look forward to further development in the region.

[compdude787]

Awesome looking bridge! Many, if not all, rail bridges around here are old and rusty, so having a bridge be called "Old Rusty" is quite realistic!

[Simmer2]

Willy is it possible, within the game mechanics, to build and code a dual DTR bridge?

[Kergelen]

Willy, nice to have you back with both Modding and MDing updates

[Guest]

These images are beautiful. Nature seems so real!

[Swordmaster]

Ok, enough of that quad for now. Let's take a look at a more rural part of town. . .



#36.  St Mary Island (Part 1 of 718)


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If we consider most of this thread so far a prelude, I think it's about time to move onto the main stuff. Of course most all of that will be work in progress, so you best get in the right frame of mind. You've gotten used to seeing scenes out of context; that's the first thing that should change, so let me (re)introduce you to the whole region for starters.




Some of you may recall that this map dates back to about 2008--a time well before today's overpass abilities, let alone diagonal bridges and similar trickery. That's why many waterways have a certain squareness to them. Likewise, we used to rely on slope-unfriendly puzzle pieces, hence the terrain's flatness. At various points I contemplated changing all that, but beyond a few edits the map will stay the way it is. With the plans I have, it'll still be a challenge.

I'll keep the history lessons to a minimum, but one thing you need to know is that PSC is actually a merger of the three cities that sit on the shores of King James Lake, each of which had already annexed other cities prior to that. All three maintain their own character, and it's hard to define which is actually the center of PSC.




St Claire is the older, founded in the 1790s (remember that?), and is probably more European in layout and architecture. Frankfort was founded on the opposite shore of the lake and has a rich industrial heritage from the late 19th century. Port City then, the youngest settlement lakeside, in between, with a highrising CBD on St Mary Island, stemming from the 1930s.

In 1956, they were consolidated into the united City of Port—St Claire. The dash was omitted a few years later. (If you have any late '50s airline posters displaying the dash, don't ditch them--they're collector's items!) The consolidation was largely fueled by partisan politics, with both Democrats and Republicans, hitherto ruling Port City and St Claire respectively, hoping to dominate the new city.

PSC is further subdivided into eight districts, which correspond to the municipality borders of 1906. The colored sections correspond to the pre-1956 borders (blue=Port City, orange=St Claire, green=Frankfort).




If you want to know more of all this, you can order the Concise Political History of PSC from Amazon. It's only $39.95 for three 1,200 page volumes, so well worth it! (If you want even more, there's also an Extended Political History of PSC, which is more pricey and only marginally longer.)



Now for some imagery. Today we go back to where I left off before my break--St Mary Island. Back then, I found it hard to realize all the transit options. The latest NAM, however, helps a lot in furthering the cause, although the NWM will need some more attention. No rail in this quad--ha!--so don't look for that.

1. Overview facing north. The big RHW running N-S is Expressway 681 which circles the lake (officially the King James Expressway, colloquially the Beltway).
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2. It connects with Expy 624 which runs west into midtown Port City. Don't mind the "expressway" connotation used in PSC, they only denote highways maintained by the city. Many of them have been upgraded to freeway standards over the years. The connection east leads onto the Shoal Expressway, which is not an expressway at all, to make things confusing
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3. Facing east. All the odd waterways you see are testimony to the island's history. It used to be a swamp, like much of the lake's shores--hence why the first settlement (Barton) was way inland. St Mary Island had only a few farms and a church until the swamp was drained during the Roaring Twenties.
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4. Facing south. The Beltway crosses the river Thunder into Frankfort. I also finished that interchange today. All my previous attempts took up way too much valuable real estate.
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5. Facing east. This local bridge connection with Frankfort was built in the 1970s when all shipping got rerouted through the new canal in the port.
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6. Facing east. I'm still sorting out the building selection here, but it should give an idea of the style I'm after. Point is also that buildings and transit need to be built simultaneously in this area, what with the footprints being particular and all.
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7. Somewhere in there is a major railroad office HQ I'm sure
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8. That one there is not the original St Mary Church, but it sits more or less in the same location.
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9. The old Great Eastern terminus. The railroad went bankrupt in the 1960s and no one was interested at the time to take over the Port City branch and its station. Through great effort, the building was listed and restored to its former glory. Most of the tracks' right of way went to the city and was converted to parkland.
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Replies

Great pictures!You can make even a simple scene look great!Well done

Thanks! Too flattering!!

That's a really great scene! The mist effect adds to it as well.

Thank you!

Looks like a nice fishing spot there, at the base of Ol' Rusty.   

Thanks, but I wouldn't go fishing in the river Thunder, if I were you. Fish lights up at night, that kind of thing

Okay so it's almost rural then.....  

Nice pictures, that bridge is really great.

Maybe if I tell you that was two quads west of this one?   Thanks Art.

That bridge scene is really lovely, the MMP work is superb and and really brings it to life.

Thank you!

That light fog is beautiful. The view from the middle of the bridge during a very dense fog would be cosmic

Absolutely! Only for the cabin crew to enjoy

Beautiful scenes!! 

Thanks!

Wonderful scene 

Thank you Nick!

I'm not kidding about missing out on the rail textures, however I may have seen them once or twice without noticing them. I'm more apt to notice what's on the track and around it than the track itself.

Ol' Rusty is a delightful addition to PSC, but that's one long string of cars using it. Actually, I really like the second photo – it has a kind of a haunting appearance to it, and the shoreline is beautifully done.

Linkie! Thank you Joan. Hope you're still with me as I go full urban. Well, full. . . with gaps in it

Stunning work on the bridge Willy    The mosaic is breathtaking! Enjoying the maps as always and look forward to further development in the region.

Thanks man. Also, thanks for the assistance in wading through the BATs.

Awesome looking bridge! Many, if not all, rail bridges around here are old and rusty, so having a bridge be called "Old Rusty" is quite realistic!

Thanks! Where is "around here" for you?

Willy is it possible, within the game mechanics, to build and code a dual DTR bridge?

Doing it the simple way, if we use avenue or Maxis highway to draw it with, probably yes. However, there's also an advanced way. . .

Willy, nice to have you back with both Modding and MDing updates

Thanks Arnau! Good to see you're still around.

These images are beautiful. Nature seems so real!

Thank you!


Cheers folks
Willy

[Gugu3]

Great update once again! &aplsGreat highway system!

[Vizoria]

What you have revealed so far looks promising. The highway looks very smooth and good.

[Simcoug]

$39.95... I have prime, so hopefully that includes shipping 
Neat idea regarding the terminus and old track space being turned into park land... seems to be a trend nowdays 

[noahclem]

Stunning update    Your composition of these skyscraper districts seems perfect and the night picture is one of my all-time favorites. I love the transit network, which features a number of clever and unique solutions. While it's not the most technically impressive of them, I really like #4 as it's asymmetrical, space-conscious nature and OWR connectivity reminds me of a lot of RL junctions on the edges of major CBDs. Love the old terminus as well, very clever solution 

[art128]

And here I was searching for a railway line, just when I read the comment that there are none! NONE!  What a disaster! A city squad with no railway line, the blasphemy! And to add to that the only station is abandoned!


Looking forward to see the downtown finished, in a few years... or more....

[Jmouse]

Love the urban night shot. What is that building with the lighted dome in the center of the lower half? Having the area map for reference is and will continue to be very helpful. I want to follow your progress very closely and study your transit solutions. I'm especially impressed by the roads on those skinny little breakwaters. It will be interesting to see where the suburbs and industrials end up, and maybe even some harbors.

[c.p.]

Nice road/highway system.  It fits the terrain really well.  Also that night shot with the Chrysler Building is awesome

[compdude787]

Awesome update! I love the way this city is looking so far!

EDIT: To answer the question in your reply, I live near Seattle, Washington.

[feyss]

It's great to see you back here Willy 

This update is quite a huge change regarding the rest of your work. It's really looking great so far. I especially like your choice of buildings and the roads layout. The dismantled station is also a great idea.

I am also curious to see how you will set up all those waterways. Keep it up 

[belfastsocrates]

Nice use of Matt's rail terminus, you've inspired me to try something

I really like the layout and progress images, looks like it'll be a superb downtown area. IC really like the use of NWM and RHW. I still haven't transitioned to RHW in my urban areas but plan to use it in my suburban and rural areas. 

[kbieniu7]

Oh, I didn't post there?

Oh la la, so... so rural... really a broken bus stop shed in average village in Galand is more interesting than this "terminus"...

Ok, that was a very dry joke. Hope, you still have rivers in your city

Oh yeah, moving back to the past, without all of this great stuff. I remember myself, how I had only few tram lines in Kolbrów, because lack of all necessary things.

Overall, cool layout of all of those expressways, freeways, highways, lowways, waterways, parkways and driveways, whatever the governement or city council decided to name them. That was always fascinating me, how Americans could imagined so many names for a road Anyway, I wonder, how tough the traffic situation have to bee there, so you've decided to build a bypass on water

Oh... seems, I managed to start every paragraph with O. 

Over.

[Guest]

The road network design is great, I love it! It is well organized.