Traffic

Highway Interchange

The cloverleaf at the highway: appears by itself at no extra cost, needs no traffic lights and has a life of its own under its ramps.

When one of your roads crosses the highway or ends at it, the game builds a highway interchange in cloverleaf shape there on its own. It costs nothing extra and needs not a single traffic light.

Cloverleaf from above — X interchange: the wide road crosses the highway as a bridge

How the cloverleaf works

Your road crosses the highway as a bridge. The deck is a little longer than needed so the ramps can join comfortably.
Turning right uses an outer ramp at ground level. You leave the highway before the bridge and join it behind the bridge.
Turning left uses a loop, three quarters of a circle. From the highway you pass under the bridge, climb the loop and come out on the deck. Onto the highway you cross the bridge, go down the loop and join the outer lane.
Exits and entries are only to the right. Ramps and loops cross at different heights, nobody ever has to wait.

Cloverleaf at an angle — Loops inside, outer ramps outside

X and T

X interchange: Your road continues on both sides of the highway. Four loops and four outer ramps.
T interchange: Your road ends at the highway. On its side there are two tight outer ramps, on the empty side the bridge leads straight into two loops.

T interchange at the highway — T interchange: the road ends at the highway, two loops opposite

Driving on the highway

Whoever wants to exit moves to the right lane long before the exit.
Through traffic keeps that lane free so nothing backs up.
Between an exit and the next entry there is a marked no-change area. Nobody changes lanes there.
There is no turning around, neither on the highway nor via the ramps. Cars plan their route so they never have to.

Life under the ramps

Under the elevated ramps and inside the loops a small world of its own grows, hidden and out of the way: fire barrels, tents and tarps, old sofas, shopping carts, fairy lights between the pillars and graffiti on every wall. Billboards float above the interchange.

Elevated ramp with a graffiti wall — Graffiti walls and billboards at the elevated ramp

Camp inside the loop — Whoever finds no other place lives in the loops

The inner triangles between the ramps follow the zone next to them: in industrial zones containers stand there, with housing, commerce or no zone trees and bushes grow.

Building rules

Houses may be built right up to the wall of the large curve, but never into a ramp.
A road may join the interchange road only one tile behind the point where exit and entry ramps merge.
A new signalized junction never appears at the highway.
A roundabout needs distance from the on-ramps (Roundabout).
A new road may not push away an existing interchange. If no further interchange fits at the spot, the preview refuses the build. If you choose bridge there, your road crosses the highway without ramps (Bridges).