Do you like this town yes or no

[wcfn100]

Without having a scale rule, I think your roads could be just fine.

Four lanes of traffic with two parking lanes and sidewalks can easily measure out to 6".

Jason

[conrail98]

I think the road width is fine also. I would bend the town slightly though as the track behind it curves. Very rarely did the railroad curve in a town without the street grid also curving,

Phil

[Dave V]

I know it's not quite what you asked, but what's got me is that the town looks like what it is; a mix of American and Japanese style buildings.

The Kato bank can fly for an American town, but the rest don't look American at all.

The trains indicate you're modeling modern era...  What locale are you modeling?  Pay attention to the architecture of the area you're modeling.  It will go a long way toward taking your town from a collection of kits to a community that grew up together.

I'm showing my town because it's a collection of very easy-to-find plastic kits, but chosen to convey central Pennsylvania.  Again, paying attention to architectural styles is important to establish a credible scene.

[rswinnerton]

I think a lot of how it will look is in the scenery.the road looks wide now, but what if you ran a tree lined median down the middle? That would break up the scene a bit. Also, once you put down lines on pavement, it'll change the look a lot. Also as Dave noted above, ditch the Japanese buildings.  Look at pictures of your location and era and let them be your guide.

Personally, I think a town with streets that big and that number and type of buildings is too small. I would rather do a smaller town better and put lots of greenery around it.

[TiVoPrince]

Consider  
placing more of the 'older' buildings along the tracks.  Industries like warehouses and businesses that receive by rail make more sense up against the railroad should line the tracks.  A little urban renewal like replacement with fast food businesses or just vacant lots including for sale signs makes sense too.  Concentrate the modern buildings together as they would help to support each other and blend to a cohesive story.

Curving the road to follow the tracks is a fine suggestion.  Often railroads alignment was there before the town or influnced existing roads as redevelopment eventually followed the tracks. Realigning the vehicles to travel on the right side of the road will help a lot...

[MichaelWinicki]

Dave V makes a good point about having a consistent architectural style.

I think the roads are too wide given the amount of space you have to work.

Lee made a good point a while back about road width just having to appear correct and not necessarily being correct, meaning that as long as it looks convincingly wide enough, don't take up any more space than you need too.

I'd shrink the road width and try to squeeze in more buildings... maybe transitioning to smaller/more run-down buildings towards the edges of the town/city.

[cv_acr]

Ohhh, I killed many brain cells playing that game and it's evil twin SimTowers back in college.  Trying to build the perfect city in a tower complex was not an easy feat...       

Yep, could use some more buildings (so says the guy with only two buildings on my main street - a Taco Bell and Domino's..... ).

Brian

I always liked taking a built up city and causing every disaster possible* and see how much of it I could burn down.

*Especially the Monster. Which in the original SimCity was a little red Godzilla, and SimCity 2000 was an alien spaceship.

[mmagliaro]

Well, I'm certainly not a qualified expert on this, but I'll throw in my $.02

As to whether the streets are too wide,  measure!  A reasonable width would be for 12' wide lanes, plus on-street parking against the curbs that needs to be about 8' wide, and then 3' or 4' wide sidewalks, given that it looks like a fairly built-up city, not a little suburb.    If you want a 4-lane road, that's 48' plus 16' for parking plus 8' for sidewalks to take up all the space between the buildings in your picture.  That would be 5.4"    When I did mine, I dug up a Dept of Transportation .pdf guide I found online and they gave dimensions for streets in rural, suburban, city, and other environments.  But 12' is a reasonable middle-of-the-road (no pun intended!) number.

Personally, I would narrow them down and plan for a 2-lane road (rather than 4) with parking on both sides, because you don't have a lot of room to work with, and I think a 2-lane would have better esthetic balance.  When a 4-lane goes through a city, you have a very built-up major "strip",  with streets 1 block over and 2 blocks over on either side that could be just as busy or could gradually taper off in "busy-ness" as you move away from a 4-lane section of the city.   There just isn't enough room  to model all of that.  So you would have this big 4-lane "downtown" looking area, but not enough room around it to justify that.   A 2-lane could depict a less massive part of town.  Plus, you need to depict reasonable amounts of parking and "behind the buildings" alleys with dumpsters, pallets, truck loading docks, and all that sort of junk.   Cities gobble up room in a hurry.

As for the directions of the streets... I disagree with the suggestion of trying to make them conform to the tracks in any way.   Cities are built on grids, and sometimes have diagonal streets cutting through them.  The tracks cut through wherever they cut through.  I would not try to make the streets or buildings "fit the tracks" in any way.  I think that would scream "toy train set."
Look at aerial shots of cities on Google, and look at how the streets are layed out and where the tracks go.

Try to lay out the city as though the railroad wasn't there yet.

[DKS]

My recommendation: launch Bing Maps and do a birds-eye view of a town in the area you're modeling. Take notes of its features, how buildings and streets are arranged, and see which models you have on hand fit their roles best. You can even get an idea of the relative sizes of things by checking the scale at the bottom right corner as you zoom in and out.

There you go. Nothing like a reality check to set you off in the right direction.

[robert3985]

My recommendation: launch Bing Maps and do a birds-eye view of a town in the area you're modeling. Take notes of its features, how buildings and streets are arranged, and see which models you have on hand fit their roles best. You can even get an idea of the relative sizes of things by checking the scale at the bottom right corner as you zoom in and out.

There you go. Nothing like a reality check to set you off in the right direction.

Amen.  Best way to make something look "real" is simply to model it after something real.

Cheers!
Bob Gilmore

[mecgp7]

I know it's not quite what you asked, but what's got me is that the town looks like what it is; a mix of American and Japanese style buildings.

The Kato bank can fly for an American town, but the rest don't look American at all.

The trains indicate you're modeling modern era...  What locale are you modeling?  Pay attention to the architecture of the area you're modeling.  It will go a long way to warding taking your town from a collection of kits to a community that grew up together.

I'm showing my town because it's a collection of very easy-to-find plastic kits, but chosen to convey central Pennsylvania.  Again, paying attention to architectural styles is important to establish a credible scene.

Dave,
Inspiration for your layout? It looked familiar. Similar to the Mowhawk Division layout in December 1993 MR. Just curious as it is one of my favorites.
Clint

[Dave V]

Dave,
Inspiration for your layout? It looked familiar. Similar to the Mowhawk Division layout in December 1993 MR. Just curious as it is one of my favorites.
Clint

Exactly!

[mecgp7]

Exactly!

I thought so. I had been out of model railroading for a number of years as I was in school. That 1993 issue was one of the first issues I purchased when I began to get back into it. A really well thought out layout/.

[One of One-Sixty]

I think the streets are a tad wide, unless you plan on running a trolley or something down the middle, even then unless it is separated from the rest of traffic with its own right-a-ways. 


If you are going to add some modern building, especially ones that are not North American per-se, try to mix it up and blend them in a little better, unless the land developer has everybody in city hall in their pockets and is buying up land to tear down and redevelop the town.








Your residential building (Kato house and Apt) is oddly placed for a main st would better placed in a residential area.


Also one thing you might want to consider is coming up with a uniform sidewalk system and if you are going to use all the Kato buildings is remove the base from them so that they sit even with the rest of your buildings.

[bc6]

Thanks for all the great suggestions and comments made about my town planning its all been welcomed. I took a lot of the comments and kinda filtered out some and plan to adopt others. Below is my short list of suggestions that will be incorporated into the town as my track plan is finalized. Below are some pics of the way the town will be planned out.


On a second note, If you were to add more buildings would you add more DPM buildings or another brand.

• Sidewalk system, I think every town needs a sidewalk unless youre at the ok Corral.
• A more linear building layout no plus sign, Dave Vollmer town grew on me a lot.
• Using the buildings a backdrop/scenery separator.
• Laying out the town old to new.
• Business then residential.