Hello, fellas! Welcome to another how-to guide for Cities: Skylines. We believe you are already familiar with the concept of this game – choose a map, build roads, set up city zones, populate people and watch your city grow and prosper. In this simulation game, it is essential to pay attention to various factors, such as the city budget, environmental protection, garbage collection, public health, and much more.
Today’s how-to guide will focus on roads in Cities: Skylines. Keep reading because you will learn how roads in Cities: Skylines work and how to change road direction.
In 2015, Paradox Interactive released the game Cities: Skylines. This single-player simulation game soon became one of the most popular city-building simulations. The game is available on the Steam platform and is currently available in PC, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One versions.
The game’s goal is simple: start from the beginning, build roads, connect your city zones, build schools, a hospital, and factories, watch your city grow and develop it until it becomes a prosperous metropolis. It is essential to know how to manage the budget and know when is the right time for city expansion; if you are careless, you can get into debt, your citizens can get sick from water or city pollution, and your city areas can be abandoned. Just like in the real world!
Let’s start with the guide; as we said today, the topic is roads: how to change the direction of one-way roads.
Also Read: How to Get Raw Materials in Cities: Skylines?
Roads in Cities: Skylines
A city cannot exist without roads, and it is a well-known fact. In order for the city cores to be connected, it is necessary to build roads. Roads are used for cargo transport, for citizens to be able to go to desired destinations, for patrolling police cars. We can count until tomorrow, but we believe the point is visible.
In Cities: Skylines, there are two basic types of roads: one-way roads and two-way roads. As your city progresses, so do your options for experimenting with roads. You can, for example, have two, three, or even six lanes on your streets. In addition to classic roads, you can add some upgrades such as decorations that will reduce noise pollution in the city and increase the value of the land. Also, add sound barriers on your highways to reduce noise pollution. It will be a little more expensive but effective for your city and citizens. Parking spaces will be placed on roads without decorations, and your citizens and tourists will become pedestrians.
Two-way roads allow vehicles to travel in both directions. With two-way roads, traffic congestion increases, but they are ideal for moving around the city. One-way roads reduce traffic congestion, and vehicles can only travel in one direction. The direction of the one-way road is already marked when you build it, in which direction you go with the construction of the one-way road in that direction all traffic will take place. Highways are an example of a one-way road, so be careful in which direction you go to build it.
With the Traffic Routes option in the game, you can check the condition of your roads in the city. It will contain all the necessary information, how the traffic is going and whether it is necessary to adjust the routes on one of the roads. Also, here you can check the direction of your roads, in case you missed some roads leading in the wrong direction. This is important because this way, you can react and change the direction of some of the roads.
Also Read: How to Fix Sewage Backup in Cities: Skylines?
Can I Change The Direction of Roads in Cities: Skylines?
If you have the latest version of the game, changing the direction of one-way roads will be extremely easy. When Cities: Skylines first came out, this option did not exist, but Paradox Interactive is trying to update the game from time to time so that it has become available to change the direction of the roads over time.
You must first select the Upgrade Tool. Upgrade Tool is in upgrade mode when building roads. At the bottom of the screen, it is marked with an exclamation mark. Primarily, this Upgrade Tool serves to upgrade selected built roads. But its other purpose is to change the direction of roads, so you can change the direction of two-way and one-way roads as you wish.
How do you do that? Very easy, as we have already said. Select the Upgrade Tool option and use the mouse to find the road on which you want to change direction. Then right-click on it, and that’s all you need to do.
You will then see how all the traffic is going in the opposite direction from the initially built one.
Also Read: How to Get Rid of Landfills in Cities: Skylines?
One-Way Street Arrows Mod for Cities: Skylines
We can’t help but recommend one of the more practical mods for Cities: Skylines – One-Way Street Arrows. With this mode your game will be significantly improved, it adds togglable green arrows to one-way streets to make it easier to see in which direction these roads are moving. These arrows can be flat or round, by default. Also, you will have the toggle button so you can turn on and off arrows. Find toggle button in the roads panel. You can also toggle arrows using the period key.
You can find this mod in Steam Workshop.
Warning: Installing mods in your game you work solely at your own risk. Mods are not created by the official creators of the game and Paradox Interactive does not take any responsibility in case the mod negatively affects your game in any way. By downloading the mods you agree to have your data distributed to the creators of the mods. Mods can be a refreshment for your game but also be aware that they can harm it.
Also Read: How to Start a New City in Cities: Skylines?
Final Thoughts
Here we come to the end of another how-to guide. Cities: Skylines is a complex game that requires a lot of concentration and skills such as budget management and quality city building. For a city to be prosperous, it must have a successful mayor, of course.
In this how-to guide, we have explained the principle of roads. How and in what way roads create and shape the city, and how to build the right roads that will connect all city cores.
We hope that you have learned how to change the direction of one-way roads and that you will share with us your ideas on how to build roads to make the city develop even better and faster quickly.
