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Re: Santa Barbara County - Update: The End.

Started by RickD, March 12, 2010, 07:09:13 AM

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ecoba

A really nice showcase of the interstate through Santa Barbara. I like your attention to realism and it seems like you're doing a quasi-recreation similar to Adrian (adroman).

Ethan

blade2k5

Quote from: RickD on March 12, 2010, 07:09:13 AMThis is my fictional County of Santa Barbara located in an alternate universe USA. It is in no way a recreation of the actual Santa Barabara. It is just the map of Santa Barbara by blade2k5, available on the LEX. I am really unimaginative when it comes to making up names so I decided to use some of the actual ones.

;D ;D  Nice to see how someone else would imagine my hometown should, could or would look like from what's actually there and so far, I'm really liking what I've seen so far.  I look forward to seeing what you have in store for us next.  Keep up the good work :thumbsup:

Berethor ♦ beskhu3epnm ♦ blade2k5 ♦ dmscopio
dedgren ♦ Emilin ♦ Ennedi ♦ jplumbley ♦ moganite ♦ M4346 ♦ nichter85 ♦ papab2000 ♦
Shadow Assassin ♦ Tarkus ♦ wouanagaine

Old fisherman never die, they just smell that way.

Tomas Neto


RickD

Thanks for all the really nice comments.

I don't know how to say this so I will be straight forward: Santa Barbara is doomed. On friday I discovered that the tile with the CBD on it has been infected with the prop pox. This means that step by step all props disappear from the lots. Sooner or later this fate will happen to all the cities in the region. Apparently there is no way to fix this. Ultimately this means the death to my oh so young MD.

I am very shocked and sad at the moment. Of course I know that this is only a game. But I have spent a great amount of my free time on creating this region. And I am especially disappointed that I cannot keep up to the commitment I made by publishing this MD.

I will probably post a few more updates to show you some highlights of the region. But I will not continue to play on it. It just makes no sense anymore. I consider the next updates to be a memorial service for the region.

I do not know yet if I will find the motivation to start another region. Maybe it is time to quit SC4 once and for all. It has been a fun time but this is just frustrating.
My name is Raphael.
Visit my MD: Empire Bay (My old MD: Santa Barbara County)

Nardo69

Not necessarily. Only if they cross the border of the specific subfilesize.

I do have such a pox mine in my plugins, too, that I wasn't able to find. But untill now "only" one town (of course the biggest with the highest effort in the old region) was infected. Funny thing I even have a bigger one in the recent region.

Don't let this steal your enthusiasm and the joy paying the game. As an early victim of the pox I do know how you feel, but hey, Kop hoch, manchmal sind kleinere Brötchen schmackhafter .... ;)

Take care my friend

und lass dir von sowas nicht den Schneid abkaufen!


Bernhard  :thumbsup:

Battlecat

That's terrible to hear!  Don't let it get you down about the game, your work is very impressive!

ldvger

#26
I had never heard of Prop Pox until last night when I read your most recent post, then I followed your link and read about it.  What a terrible affliction!  Still, there is some hope for your region, from what I read, although it would mean a lot of work on your part, granted. 

From what I read, if you have a backup of your original region, one made BEFORE you started building, you can start over.  For that matter, you could re-download the region map, being as it is available.  Also, sounds like you need to do some housecleaning in your plug-ins folders, as extensive research appears to have been done into what causes this problem (Prop Pox) and removing (or fixing) offending files BEFORE one starts is about the only way to avoid it.

Speaking for myself, I plan to read the rest of the thread about Prop Pox and then take steps to avoid the situation myself.  I know I have a couple of the known bad files in my plugins...

So your loss becomes an object lesson for the rest of us.

Later edit:  You may also want to post your discovery to the Prop Pox thread you linked us to, as there is ongoing research into this issue and your city may be of value to those doing the research.  BarbyW has been looking at poxed cities and thier attendant plug-in files, so she may be interested in seeing yours, as well.  Think of it as donating the body of a loved one to research (or maybe not, depending on how you feel about such things...).

Lora/LD

RickD

Hi all, thanks for stopping by. First an update on the prop pox. The current situation is that I have one city, the CBD, that is definitely infected. I had feared that three other tiles would soon be poxed, too. But I could verify that this most likely will not be the case. This means if I want to keep playing this region I have to completely rebuild the tile with the CBD. I think it is worth it. I'll open it on a second screen and just copy the street layout etc. to the empty tile, plop major landmarks, etc. This should enable me to come close to the original. It should be doable in two or three weekends.
Of course it won't be exactly the same. So don't be irritated when the CBD will look a bit different in future updates to what it looks now.

Public service announcement:
If you do not yet know about the prop pox and how to avoid it, I strongly suggest to read this thread . It can save yourself a lot of trouble.





Replies:

Nexis4Jersey:
Glad you like it.

Battlecat:
Thanks for the compliment.

canyonjumper:
Thanks for visiting my MD again.

penguin007:
Welcome to my MD!

nedalezz:
Well, in reality Interstate 5 bypasses Santa Barbara. The main freeway through the region is US-101. I would say I based my freeway more on US-101. I looked at it on Google Streetview and Bing Aerial View quite a lot.

ldvger:
Hi Lora, I appreciate your comments very much. It is cool to have someone here who knows the real region and can tell some anecdotes and point out differences between fiction and reality. I have never been to SB myself. But the company I work for works together with another company from Santa Barbara. Maybe one day I will find a reason to justify a business trip. ;)
The thing with Turnpike road is that I realized only seconds before posting that I had named two roads Turnpike Rd. So I decided it would be a ring road divided into East and West section for easier navigation.
There will be more fictional names for places in the future, though.

Nardo69:
Hi Bernhard, it's an honor to see you here. Don't worry, there is railway in my SB, too. We will see it in the near future. I am planning a similar series of updates. However, I am not sure if you will like it that much. As my MD is american themed I also built the railway american style, purposely ignoring your tutorials about level crossings. But this leaves the posibility to show improvement projects in future updates. ;)

ecoba:
Thanks again. I like Adrian's MD, too.

blade2k5:
Hey, great to have you here. I didn't know you where from Santa Barbara. Thanks for creating this map!

Tomas Neto:
Thank you.

RickD:
This is so sad to hear.  :P

Nardo69:
Thank you so much for the encouraging words. Nah, I can't quit SC4. I'm an addict. I was just so frustrated when I discovered this. And I had three other tiles close to the limit. If those would have developed the pox, too it would have been to much. But as it turns out I seem to have Glück im Unglück.

Battlecat:
Thanks for your support. I appreciate it.

ldvger:
Thanks for your kind words. Yes I will rebuild this tile. I am glad that at least my tragedy did raise some awareness to this problem and maybe prevents it from happening to some others. I am still doing my own research on the poxed city. Without any positive results so far. But I don't want to give up yet.




Traveling Santa Barbara

Today we will continue our trip along I-5 where we left off last time.

This are the locations where the pictures where taken:




2.1


The high-speed bypass railline crosses the Interstate.


2.2


Traffic from the exit in the next picture often backs up onto the Interstate here. That is why there is a very long exit lane.


2.3


This exit serves the northern suburbs, a large industrial area, a hospital, suburban office towers and the central cemetary. It is very congested in the morning and evening.
Sorry about the missing prop. I noticed this too late. Guess I am missing the flag prop.


2.4


This exit has been built recently to relief congestion on the exit in the next picture. Till here I-5 has been widened to 6 lanes. Then the budget was cut. The CBD is to the top of the picture.

2.5


Only a few hundred yards down the road is already the next exit. You can also see the local rail line cross the Interstate on its way to the central train station.


2.6


This is the major interchange in the region (up to 250,000 AADT). It is right next to the CBD. I-5 comes from the top and continues to the right. The road to the left will soon convert to a surface avenue. The road to the bottom is US-101. It runs at the western flank of the CBD as a freeway and then continues as an expressway along the coast to the airport until it eventually reaches I-5 again.

This is the tile with the prop pox that I'll have to completely rebuild. I will take this chance to completely redesign this interchange. I am not very happy with it as it is now. The slopes are too steep and the merge lanes too short. When I built it I did not want to demolish too much of the CBD so I cramped it in there.


2.7


I-5 cutting through the city at night. Still heavy traffic.


2.8


This is the main exit from I-5 to the CBD, AMTRAK station and the stadium. The cloverleaf is to the right. I-5 is up to 8 lanes wide here.


2.9


Now we are driving into the eastern suburbs. This is where the CBD gradually transforms into urban sprawl again. The CBD is to the left. This exit is split into two halves. You can see the other ramps in the next picture.

2.10


I-5 is elevated for about 2 miles. Originally it was planned as a normal ground level freeway because this is the cheapest to build. But the people living there protested as it would have cut off access to the beach which is just at the right of the picture. The DOT promised to build several pedestrian over- or underpasses. But this still was not acceptable for the people. Eventually the DOT gave in. As it was not possible to build a sunken road due to the  ground water level and unstable soil an elevated alignment was chosen.


2.11


I-5 along the infamous Nelson Muntz Housing Project. You'd better not have a car breakdown here.


2.12


A trumpet interchange connects US-101 (from the top of the picture) to I-5. I-5 and US-101 are co-signed from here to the interchange at the CBD where they split again. Part of the interchange is built on reclaimed land.

I hope you enjoyed this update. Thanks in advance for commenting.

Disclaimer: This is not a recreation of the actual Santa Barbara.
My name is Raphael.
Visit my MD: Empire Bay (My old MD: Santa Barbara County)

threestooges

Glad to hear you've decided to stick with it. I know the game can be frustrating (losing your entire session of developments due to a CTD because you forgot to save is one of my favorites) but I'm glad you decided to stick with it. Besides, as you noted in 2.6, you now have the opportunity to give things a second shot. Actually, as far as the short merge lanes and cramped quarters go, it reminds me quite a bit of the real life Santa Barbara. There's even one on-ramp (Cabrillo Blvd on US 101) where you get to drive up a rather steep, really short ramp and merge in from the left, right into the fast lane. So I think the setup you wedged in there is fairly true to life, and something city planners must work with on a daily basis. That being said though, it'll be fun to see how you choose to redevelop it. Also, I feel compelled to laugh (in a high-pitched whine of course) at picture 2.11. What prompted the projects there? They seem like they're in rather close proximity to the beach, so it can't be too bad. Again, nicely done, and I'm glad to hear you'll be keeping up with this. It's great to see someone's take on a terrain/city area I'm familiar with, and see how they use the area for themselves.
-Matt

rooker1

Raphael,
I, too am so glad you have decided to continue on.  I don't think you will regret your decision, I know we won't with work like you have been showing us so far.

Robin  :thumbsup:
Call me Robin, please.

ldvger

Great work and I share Matt's thoughts about your deciding to continue with your region, despite Prop Pox.  Raising community awareness about this isse, especially how to avoid it (as there seems to be no way yet to fix it) is very important (IMO) and I plan to devote some space in my own MD to spreading the word.

It's interesting that you bring into your MD the issues of the Freeway Wars and the raised/lowered freeway debate.  This really happened, to some degree, in RL Santa Barbara.  My family moved to SB in the fall of 1964 and even then the debate about what to do with US 101 (which in your MD is I-5) was raging.  101 crossed several major streets that ran from downtown to the beach.  The intersections were originally built with stoplights, if you can believe that, and even in the 60's traffic would back up several miles as folks made thier way through the several blocks of stoplights.  While a terrible pain for through drivers, the stoplights were a boon for local businesses, as the lights provided drivers the opportunity to pull off the freeway and gas up or grab a bite to eat or even visit the beach.  So of course the business owners were adamantly against removing the stoplights, despie numerous studies that revealed that the huge majority of through drivers who stopped at the lights did so solely to find a public restroom.  Rasing the freeway above the major cross streets was opposed as creating both a physical and visual barrier between the downton and the beach, as well as fears of creating a "wrong side of the tracks" area on the beachward side of the freeway.  There was also the major issue of noise pollution a raised freeway would create.  Lowering the freeway to allow the cross streets to pass over it seemed the obvious solution except that, like you pointed out, the soil is very sandy and porous, which meant keeping the sunken freeway dry/unflooded would be very difficult.  There were then (and still are now) a couple of sunken on/off ramps to 101 both before and after the stoplights, and they all flood on a regular basis whenever it rains.

This debate raged for at least 20 years, maybe longer.  I lived in SB from 1964 until 1976 and the debate was raging still when I left.  Meanwhile, traffic at the lights got worse and worse.  There had also been lights on 101 on a scetion near Salinas, about 150 miles north, but those got fixed back in the 70's.  Eventually, those 3 stoplights in SB were the only ones left on 101 between the Mexican and Canadian border. 

I don't know what the time frame was when they eventually got rid of the lights and sunk the freeway.  It's been a while now, but my family was still living in SB during the construction and wow did I get an earful every time I called home.  It took years to build the new freeway and in the meantime, all of downtown was torn up and folks couldn't drive anywhere. 

I rarely visit SB anymore, now that most of my family has left, but it seems like every time I do, I end up walking down State Street to the beach and it always seems so strange to me to not have to cross the freeway at the lights anymore. 

Nice work and I hope you do get to visit the real Santa Barbara some day.  It really is a very beautiful town...every time I visit I wonder why I ever left and I think about moving back.  But after 3-4 days with the family, I can't wait to get out of there....

Lora/LD

canyonjumper

Great pictures! I especially like your highway setups, the exits are something I'll have to incorporate into my MD ;D

         -Jordan :thumbsup:
I'm the one who jumped across the Grand Canyon... and lived.

ecoba

A really great tour of the interstate. I must compliment you on having the bravery to continue your region despite the prop pox, this persistance is really nice.

I like the design on the interchanges and the surroundings are really beautiful. I like the suburbs, although I might recommend a Maxis Blocker as you seem to have enough Custom Content to do so, and the maxis rom shacks somewhat detract from the appearance; I would also suggest a street side mod. I also really do like the housing projects, most cities have these, and you've made them in a really suitable area.

Keep up the great work, hope to see some more soon!

Ethan

Battlecat

Great to see you continuing!  You've got a great selection of work!  Interesting to hear about the issues with freeway construction.  You really do a great job building nice looking highways!

Tomas Neto

Awesome update again my friend!!! Fantastic!!!  :thumbsup:

dedgren

[tabular][row][data]Disclaimer: This is not a recreation of the actual Santa Barbara.[/data][/row][/tabular]

Well, if you had'na told me...

Great work, Rick.  The trumpet interchange is the best implementation of RHW I've seen for that style yet- I know (from sad experience) how hard you have to work to get to that level of perfectness.

The prop pox thing is pretty discouraging.  Maybe it's the game's way of saying that, no matter how well you think you've done with a quad, you can do even better by starting again from scratch.  I don't know, but best of luck, and thanks for hanging in there.


David
D. Edgren

Please call me David...

Three Rivers Region- A collaborative development of the SC4 community
The 3RR Quick Finder [linkie]


I aten't dead.  —  R.I.P. Granny Weatherwax

Skype: davidredgren

RickD

Replies:

threestooges:
QuoteThere's even one on-ramp (Cabrillo Blvd on US 101) where you get to drive up a rather steep, really short ramp and merge in from the left, right into the fast lane.
Oh yes, I remember seeing that one on aerial photos. I had to look twice to believe it.

QuoteWhat prompted the projects there? They seem like they're in rather close proximity to the beach, so it can't be too bad.
They are close to the sea. But the coast becomes quite steep and rocky in the east. So no real beach. And hey, you are never far away from the beach in Santa Barbara and the poor people have to live somewhere, too.

rooker1:
Thanks. It is worth the work knowing that there are people out there that enjoy it.

ldvger:
It is very interesting to hear about the real story. I read about the freeway revolts on wikipedia. I don't think we had somethin similar happen in Germany.
I have one question you might be able to answer. Santa Barbara is built very close to the ocean shore. Aren't there many problems with floodings in general? In Germany we have to build huge dikes to prevent our coastal areas from being flooded during storms. It would not be advisable to build a city so close to the water without protection.

canyonjumper:
Thanks, glad you like it.

ecoba:
Thanks for your suggestions. I appreciate constructive criticism. Actually I don't think all Maxis buildings are ugly. There are some R§ and R§§ houses I quite like. So I don't want to use a Maxis blocker. What really annoys me are the big mansions. But you are right. The suburbs still need a lot of work. Being a roadgeek I focused more on the freeway. But I will revisit the suburbs and grow some better looking buildings.
I have been using a streetside mod but removed it because there where too many too large trees for my taste. Now that you mention it I agree that my suburbs look a bit boring with completely empty sidewalks. I will look into the streetside mods again and maybe I will find a solution that I like.

Battlecat:
Thank you so much.

Tomas Neto:
Thanks.

dedgren:
Quote
QuoteDisclaimer: This is not a recreation of the actual Santa Barbara.
Well, if you had'na told me...
Just playing it safe. My sources tell me there is at least one lawyer reading. $%Grinno$%




In Memoriam

I made some random shots of downtown before deleting the tile. Several props are already missing and I forgot to turn the grid off. But I hope you enjoy anyway.

3.1


3.2


3.3


3.4


3.5


3.6


3.7


3.8


3.9


3.10


3.11


3.12


3.13


3.14


3.15


3.16


3.17


3.18


3.19


3.20


3.21


That's it for now. If you have any suggestions on what to improve during rebuilding, now is the best time to tell me. ;)

Disclaimer: This is not a recreation of the actual Santa Barbara. ;)
My name is Raphael.
Visit my MD: Empire Bay (My old MD: Santa Barbara County)

ldvger

Raphael-

Very nice update, it must be heart wrenching to hit that DEL key and watch all that work disappear.  But, you'll do better next time around.

In RL, SB faces mostly south and the majority of storms come from the north, traveling down the coast along the Humbolt Current (I think, not sure that's what it's called).  The mountains behind, to the north, of SB protect it from a lot of the severe weather.  In fact, if you look on Google Earth, you can see a spur of land that sticks out into the Pacific Ocean north of SB called Point Conception.  This spur of land also protects SB from the worst of the winter seas that plague the SoCal coast (and which the surfers love).  The big waves that winter storms generate via wind and ocean currents are "broken" by Point Conception.  If you have any interest in wave dynamics or stream cynamics, you'll know that there is always a calm spot of water directly downflow of a major obstruction in the water...and SB is built in that little protected area. 

Santa Barbara also has addition protection to the south, which is where the rest of the storms come from.  About 20 miles offshore from SB is a chain of mountainous islands called the Channel Islands.  On clear days they are very plainly visible from SB and they are quite easy to boat over to.  There are no towns on the islands, I am pretty sure they are all state parks, very protected.  There is a big seismic fault line that runs down the middle of the ocean area between mainland SB and the islands, which is how the islands formed in the first place. 

Most of the coastline along SB is cliffs.  There are few actual sandy beaches.  This high coast helps prevents flooding.  However, SB does experience coastal flooding during winter storms, especially in the areas where the low sandy beaches are.  A bad storm combined with high winter tides can create a lot of road closures along the beaches and make a big mess.  But, with all the natural protections SB enjoys, flooding is actually fairly rare.  The climate is also fairly mild, even in winter, not anything like what you experience in Germany.  You are much further north and subject to completely different weather patterns.  Santa Barbara is pretty warm year round...they almost never have snow and when they do, it's in the mountains behind the town, not down in the flats.  No snow days for school kids! 

So...take a tour of the area on Google Earth, now that you know a little more about how the weather works there and I think you'll be able to see for yourself why it doesn't flood much.

Lora/LD


iGod

Wow, nice update. Really like the downtown night shot (3.13?). Keep the good work up!

kwakelaar

A great looking series of images from SB, and such a pity you have been hit by the prop pox. Hope even after this you will be able to continue with this MD.