Decreasing that Annoying Commute Time

Later on in the game (about 10 - 20 thousand people) you may start having issues with your people's commute time. If you end up with a HIGH commute time people will start leaving you city and abandoning their homes. It's definitely best to try to counter act this problem early in the game because otherwise you may have to destroy several buildings and do countless remodeling and reconstruction projects to get the same effect. So this will be most effective if done early.

Subways are a major key for your victory! Trust me, you want subways all over the place. Whenever you create a new community, construct a subway at every block.

Also, connect your subways to elevated railways that go completely around your city. Make sure to connect the subways to commercial and industrial zones (because this is the whole point of your people getting out of their homes in the first place!)

(Subway to Elevated Rail)

Another way to get your people around town quickly is to use highways. Start off with a clover leaf in the center of you region (Make a ground level one so your elevated rail can get over it). Then have a highway go out of the region in all directions. Then create an avenue that goes in a square around the highway and also goes out of the region. (See Figure 1)

Legend:

Black: Avenue

Blue: Highway

Orange: OnRamps

Red: Clover Leaf

This is a good start to an effective system to dramatically lower to commute time. I hoped this has help. :)