You should make a fix my junction series. So people can understand when certain intersections are better than others and how to adapt intersections for their personal needs
Here inTexas, large highways in metropolitan areas often have one way frontage roads running parallel, next to commercial zones, usually at 45-50 mph. Arterials and most collectors passing beneath the highway overpass include a dedicated u-turn lane that is placed behind a median to the left of oncoming traffic. It works really well for allowing fast moving traffic to turn around to get to a destination on the opposite side of the highway without any need for ramps or cloverleaf building. I’m going to try to build one myself, but I’m still pretty new at this game
Ah yes, the good ol Texas U-turn. That was a popular one back when the game first came out (no node controller, no lane marking tool or traffic manager or road anarchy!)
Huntsville uses this same setup. Its nice in practice unless your trying to get to a place right after the U-turn and have to jump 3 lanes of traffic. Obviously going down 1 junction gives you time to choose your lane proper, but for people new to the area it can be a daunting, and often times, dangerous experience.
I was in Texas for work one time and had never seen that setup. In theory it makes a lot of sense, but in reality, it was terrible. Especially when you had to jump 3 lanes of cars going 45 - 60 MPH just to turn right
@@YUMBL in my experience as a michigander, u-turners generally don’t get their own lane but when two priority roads cross there’s often a short light at the u-turn to make sure everyone gets through safely, and you can make that left on red if traffic is light. it’s not ideal but i prefer it to a standard lighted intersection and traffic seems to get through a lot better
@@joshdillon7856 i was thinking of the u-turns having their own lane after their turn that would carry on through the intersection, but yeah theres always a specific lane to make a u-turn
@@YUMBL they have lanes cut into the median. Depending on the intersection you might have 2 choices in how you take the Michigan left: Right, u-turn, then straight, or the more common straight, u-turn, then right (left turns stay stacking left) which helps with efficiency. If there's a light at a u-turn, it's treated as if it's a right turn which makes it the only interaction I know of where you can turn left on red. The light allows drivers to move all the way over from left to right before thru traffic can stack at the light.
While out walking the dog with my spouse today, they were complaining to me about the idiotic changes our city is making to the road their workplace is on. Due to the changes, vehicles are now going the wrong way into oncoming traffic to turn into popular destinations. My spouse used to turn left out of their workplace but now has to turn right. There is a light near where people make illegal u-turns; however, the cycle is stupidly short. So people trying not to be idiots driving the wrong way are stacking in the left-most lane to make that u-turn. Since my spouse can't reasonably get into that stack, they have to go over a mile to flip back around. All of this reminded me of living in Michigan and the Michigan u-turn. They had never seen it before, so I explained it to them. Now with this video, I can show them. So thanks for that.
I've lived in MI for about 7 years now, and ever since I've wanted to see how the MI left intersection actually performs! Thanks for finally showing it off!
It seems uncommon to see these brought up in cities skyline videos, Michigan Lefts are something I grew up with and live with, being from Metro Detroit. I appreciate this tutorial on them. Just so people know, you can adjust the amount of lanes, and have these intersect with smaller (median-less) roads for a smaller foot print. Both roads don't need to have U-turns. You don't need a right turn dedicated to the U-turn lane, I never seen these in real life. A lot of the time the U-turn lane starts after the intersection, for the left traffic lane to merge into or keep going straight. We also have Michigan lefts on service roads around freeway on/off ramps (middlebelt and schoolcraft along I-96 for example).
I haven't played this game in a long time, and have no plans to again but these videos are so addictive to me. There is something I find inherently interesting about clever road and highway design.
This is a great design. I can see this handling high traffic intersections even a roundabout would struggle on. It can also be scaled down to use on smaller roads you expect to need to grow in the future - just reduce the number of lanes and you can add them back in as the traffic grows.
Being from Ohio originally and having spent time driving in Michigan, I love that you actually called these "Michigan Lefts". What I find more interesting is that these aren't usually set up to handle just a single interchange like you've shown, but there will be two u-turns for each direction (for two consecutive intersections) and sometimes, they'll even have a stop light just for the u-turns between the intersections. I was also recently in Texas (less than a week ago) and saw something similar there with one way frontage roads that run parallel to the interstates and then had u-turns at intersections where entrance/exit ramps connected the interstate with the frontage roads as well as a cross road. Very nice!
This intersection, and how you designed it within the paradigm of leveraging u-turns is, art. I try to show my wife how beautiful these custom intersections are but she just does understand us yumbl.
Love it. I'm from Michigan I've tried adding Michigan lefts to Cities this is a good take. In reality, many of these Michigan left turns also allow to go straight onto a "cross street" in addition to a U-turn. In this case the "cross street" doesn't actually "cross" the main boulevard, you can only turn right onto the boulevard and the former "intersection" is converted into two Michigan left turns coming from either direction off the boulevard.
Thanks for all these videos Yumbl! Started playing again after 2 years because of these kind of videos, and it's helping me a lot: ~80% traffic (no despawning)
As an anti-car person, you surprise me with your ability to somehow make intersections - usually a blight on the space they inhabit - seem beautiful in a way.
@@luckyluke5638 Anti-bicycle, too. I look up real world bike path projects for inspiration and the comments are full of people asserting that mass transit should be the only allowable form of transportation.
As far as crazy intersections go... you've heard about the Single Point Urban Interchange. Now get ready for the Dual Point Urban Interchange. An overpass with an intersection on both levels, controlled by a synchronized light cycle. Its major feature is that traffic from opposing directions can get green at the same time no matter their destination. Is it cursed? Yes. Do I regret making it? Not for a second.
When the flow on the Continuous Flow Intersection isn't continuous enough. :P How do you deal with the left turns conflicting with the straights? As far as I know, any 4-way junction needs at least 4 phases to fully eliminate conflicts. Splitting that to 2 levels still gives you a green only about half of the time.
@@Pystro there are still 2 light cycles. It's not entirely free flowing. To turn, you go onto the intersection on the other level, so that left turns don't conflict with straight through from the other side.
@@Gamesaucer Ah, I read that description wrong apparently. So what you have is basically equivalent to the 3-level intersection YUMBL asked us to name last time, but only on 2 levels, so that the straights have to go through a traffic light too.
Neat to see how this type of intersection would look with that kind of marking density. I've never seen anything like that here in Michigan, unfortunately. We're lucky to have turn guidelines at all
I spent a few years in Michigan and there’s actually 2 ways to turn left. First is the way you have this set up, which is turning right, doing u turn then straight. The 2nd is going straight through the intersection, doing a U turn and then a right. I understand the 2nd option is harder to pull of gracefully in city skylines due to the AI and crossing more lanes but just thought you should know.
This makes much more sense than another "Michigan Left" design I saw where the U-turn traffic merged with the oncoming traffic. I didn't find it compelling enough to use. But the design you showcased here is much more sensible and efficient, and something I'd consider using.
The other design you mention is closer to real life, I think. I'm not sure I've ever encountered a real Michigan Left that has a dedicated intake lane for the u-turning traffic like this.
I've found more rural Michigan lefts just have you loop around and get right back into traffic, like this example. But in more densely populated areas (Woodward Ave in Royal Oak/Beverley Hills) they often have stoplights at the u-turns to allow those drivers to merge all the way over to the outside of the road after the U-turn itself.
@@Zorbino88 I grew up in Rochester, MI and have used Woodward Ave and Telegraph Road quite a bit with the Michigan Lefts as you mention. Unlike this video, besides the stop lights for the U-turn, I’d like to mention they can and do have more than one U-turn lane, which I think is a huge reason to add stop lights, but they’re very helpful in practice. Useful for people to know is these large U-turns work amazingly well for dealing with huge volumes of traffic at speed, of which Telegraph Road I’ve found I could synchronize my speed and put it on cruise control for easily 10 miles, at either the speed limit as it varied around 40-50 mph, or the higher speed typical in rush hour at around 70 mph, complete on the rough and bounding road, bumper to bumper with everyone else. I haven’t lived in Michigan since 92 for a very brief time after college and starting my career/life away from home, but I’ve made it a regular practice where it is workable to practice an artificial Michigan Left even where the roads aren’t formally designed for it: it’s amazing how often the typical light cycles of roads with major intersections have more than 2 phases that make it work out well if you know what you’re doing. I can easily in some cases avoid multiple full intersection light cycles when I do this compared to all those turning left where I want to go.
Commenting on pedestrian isles in the middle of the road: I hate these. Green phases for pedestrians are too short to cross to the other side if you don't start running immediately. Waiting in the middle sucks because even if the space looks big enough all it takes is a couple more pedestrians waiting and it begins to feel unsafe. Especially if you have kids with you and extra especially with a stroller. I live near one of those crossings (Germany) and have to cross diagonally to get to the train station. Takes ages. That said, video is great and helpful as ever.
There’s a road that has several intersections like this near where I live. They’re referred to as “Thru-Turns”. This road doesn’t have a wide median, so the u-turns dump traffic into the far-right lane. The u-turns are located at intersections as well, so they act as both left turns and dedicated u-turn lanes.
I've enabled u-turns in some of my vanilla overpass intersections just because it's more realistic and uses more lines efficiently, but this opens up more ideas for u-turns!
Ahh, when I first moved to MI and encountered the Michi-left for the first time, I was confounded. It didn't help that is was midnight and we were driving in an area that had no streetlights. Every intersection had no left turn signs. It was a fun few minutes.
I live in Michigan and more specifically Grand Rapids, so I use a lot of Michigan left turns everyday. I would say the on you made is a little different than the one i see everyday. The furthermost left lane is actually the dedicated lane for the u- turn irl instead of the right lane in your video. We go straight through the intersection to then make a U- turn going the direction we came then to make the final right turn.
Just getting back into Cities Skylines and you are inspiring me in so many ways, hope I can do justice. Got a lot to learn, and one learns by doing. Thank you for awesome content.
Already eagerly awaiting for it to be posted on the workshop so I can ditch the horrible attempt at this I haven't even made yet. Your intersections? _cheff's kiss_
As you can imagine by the name, there are fairly common here in Michigan, at least in urban superblock settings. I was in the car the first time my father encountered one when he was visiting from North Carolina, and I had to guide him through it. Him being a very, shall we say, socio-liguisitcally reserved type of person, it was amusing to hear him frustratedly say "Who the f-- Whose genius idea was THAT?!" I told him I didn't know who invented it, but around here, it's just a normal part of driving.
You seem to know what you''re talking about with regards to the intersection, so I thought I'd ask here: How is the intersection signposted? Is it signposted, or are you expected to 'Just Know'?
@@2001herne they show which lanes are for going in which directions with enough warning, and the lanes also tend to be painted clearly. I grew up in the Detroit area with these on the biggest surface roads with 40 mph+ speed limits where people are commonly doing 70 mph with the traffic lights, and either at the posted speed limit or about 70 mph you could use cruise control to drive easily 10 miles without stopping if driving straight through. Where the space exists for these, they’re great for moving huge volumes of traffic, even 70 mph bumper-to-bumper (the Detroit area has some interesting driving conditions).
Yet another intersection style to add to my list. Awesome! I just recently did something different to solve a major traffic problem in my city. I took the idea of crossing over from the DDI and applied it to city streets. It's great for a built up area where you don't want to smash blocks of buildings. I replaced the existing 6 lane road with two 3 lane one-way roads that make traffic cross over at both ends. The roads go for 4 junctions and even through a service interchange. Traffic flows much smoother and I no longer have huge backups caused by cars waiting at a red light to turn left. It was a real pain to set up as the game was not intended to work this way but once it was finished it looks and works wonderfully. I keep finding myself just sitting and watching traffic move through it. No lane connectors either! And building deliveries/pedestrian access still works even though the buildings were built before I changed the roads.
As a truck driver who frequently has to make stops in the Detroit area I absolutely despise Michigan lefts as they are often very very tight when hauling a 53' trailer. They aren't the worst hassle in Detroit but they really make life harder for truckers especially when traffic is heavy.
One thing I just noticed is this type of Michigan Left intersection is rare generally it is a normal road meeting say a boulevard has the Michigan Left so some time you do need to go straight through than make the u to the turn right
Yes, we have those all over in Michigan! You either hate them or love them. They usually work unless you get a-holes who like to speed and then you wait at the yield forever. Is this available on your workshop?
There's an intersection in Seattle that is similar to this idea. You are not allowed to turn left at the intersection, so they can keep traffic flowing. You have to drive several blocks away, then do a U-turn, then when you get back to the intersection turn right, or as you mentioned reverse it: turn right at the intersection, then do the U-turn several blocks away. It is incredibly frustrating to most actual drivers, but it DOES work to improve flow.
big urban intersections in mainland China commonly have U turns in the medians, but before the traffic light. The medians are also used to make signal phasing extremely efficient, but involving pedestrians having to pause in the median
@@YUMBL they are at parking lot entrances. They are not as cut an dry as the ones in this video, but they do get the cars turned around going the right way.
I've never seen or heard of this design before, but I realise I've done exactly this on some rare occasions when I've just missed the turning traffic light and when it's safe to do so
That is very nice. It sounded much more complicated when you talked about it in earlier videos. You're always interesting, informative and inspiring; thanks.
The"going straight" sections could also be organized as an over/under pass that avoids the light. Right turning traffic child then merge in without a light too, meaning only left turning traffic would need the light. That could cut 10 seconds or more from the left turn time and better than halve the transit time of the rest of traffic.
I thought this was going to be something similar to what my dad calls the Cajun Left. For those who don't know what that is, you see it a lot in and around New Orleans (which is why he calls it the Cajun Left). Basically, a lot of collectors have a drainage canal dividing their lanes, and only a few crossovers (which are U-turn only) between intersections. If you're on the collector, and want to turn left to get onto one of the local side streets , you have to get onto the nearest crossover past the street you want to get onto, make the U-turn, and *then* make a right turn at your desired street.
Amazing thank you The other day I was wondering if it would be possible to create the shibuya crossing from Tokyo. It’s that crossing where pedestrians are allowed to diagonally cross the intersection… I’m not sure if it would be a good idea in game for it sure would look cool
Would love to see a tutorial on making an intersection featuring a HOOK TURN (or two-step turn). I’m from Victoria, Australia and they’re really interesting but I don’t know how I’d implement it in cities skylines
I've seen versions of these IRL that have two lanes for U-Turn with traffics lights. And in my home town it jus a left turn lain and a yield sign and you just gotta merge into traffic on your own risk.
Somewhat similar to the "Seoul Left," as this is very similar to how it works there. Every major road in Seoul has U-turn lanes. If your destination is on the "wrong" side of the road you're traveling, you just hit the next U-turn, and double back. It keeps traffic moving, at least to the extent that is possible. Traffic in Seoul is crazy. I hated even getting into a car there. Public transport was often faster and always more relaxing.
But also there is a u turn lane in medians which I never see any other state using. It literally just is a turn around to go down the other way of a road
I had this idea, but for major highway interchanges. Center would just be one interstate crossing over the other. To go from North to West, just exit East, then stay in the acceleration lane until it takes a bridge that U-turns over the interstate back West. Symmetrical, simple, merges on the right, fast ramps, and compact.
While I don't have a fancy city design program, I've always been fascinated by traffic control. My active mind, and many wasted notebook pages has brot me to this conclusion: Median U-turns cud facilitate traffic flow at most primary intersections while allowing for the reduction of highway side crossings. The bad result is the weaving necessary to transition from an inside u-turn to an outside exit. Traffic on these roads must be slow and uniform across all lanes for inside u-turns to work. Go cruise the interstates and beltways of Houston to see what I mean. They work .. but with a trade off.
Interestingly I didn't see any comments on this but you can get the same effect with just 2 U-turn spots. Same turning/distance amounts for every car. Those 2 spots will receive more buildup of traffic but it shouldn't be horrible
@@YUMBL ok, I see what you mean. It would not be too bad if it was on a 2-lane road, which is what I built my model on, but yeah on a 6 lane like this it would be supee dangerous and impractical. Thanks for responding! I play a free android game(maybe it's on PC also) called Intersection Controller, by Shadowtree. It's very oriented towards single intersections/interchanges rather than large networks like Cities Skylines is. I think you woukd really like it, I encourage you to give it a try sometime.
I would love to see this but only having ones of the roads having the uturns instead of all of the roads. I live in Michigan and no intersection has all of the directions with a u turn
. . . ok, the right-left-left (u-turn) is a bit more intuiitive than the right-right-right to effectively make a left turn - the only thing you have to do is to create a large enough buffer for the u-turning vehicles (depends on the traffic numbers and on the light switching frequency) and to provide a large enough radius for long vehicles / semi-trailers - which indeed is pretty space consuming . . . there is no absolute must for a dedicated / forced u-turn lane . . .
You should make a fix my junction series. So people can understand when certain intersections are better than others and how to adapt intersections for their personal needs
^THIS!!!
Yes!!
Definitely. This.
i would love to see some 'live' examples!
Please
Beautiful intersection right there! The flexibility of the engine surprises me every time you do a new creation.
if you want the true Michigan experience the road has to be covered in potholes
What do you expect? No one likes to pay for it
@@alohatigers1199 nobody can pay for it, most cities in the us have too much road for each person because everyone has to drive
Road budget set to min
Funniest comment I've seen cause I've driven many hours in Detroit lol.
Here inTexas, large highways in metropolitan areas often have one way frontage roads running parallel, next to commercial zones, usually at 45-50 mph. Arterials and most collectors passing beneath the highway overpass include a dedicated u-turn lane that is placed behind a median to the left of oncoming traffic. It works really well for allowing fast moving traffic to turn around to get to a destination on the opposite side of the highway without any need for ramps or cloverleaf building. I’m going to try to build one myself, but I’m still pretty new at this game
I am, too. I think, one of my next cities
Ah yes, the good ol Texas U-turn. That was a popular one back when the game first came out (no node controller, no lane marking tool or traffic manager or road anarchy!)
Huntsville uses this same setup. Its nice in practice unless your trying to get to a place right after the U-turn and have to jump 3 lanes of traffic. Obviously going down 1 junction gives you time to choose your lane proper, but for people new to the area it can be a daunting, and often times, dangerous experience.
I was in Texas for work one time and had never seen that setup. In theory it makes a lot of sense, but in reality, it was terrible. Especially when you had to jump 3 lanes of cars going 45 - 60 MPH just to turn right
love to see the michigan left represented, it’s very underrated in CS and irl
I think its good, but idk if u-turners get their own lane irl.
@@YUMBL in my experience as a michigander, u-turners generally don’t get their own lane but when two priority roads cross there’s often a short light at the u-turn to make sure everyone gets through safely, and you can make that left on red if traffic is light. it’s not ideal but i prefer it to a standard lighted intersection and traffic seems to get through a lot better
They have there own lane for u turns just shorter at least in Detroit and sterling heights the places I regularly travel with them
@@joshdillon7856 i was thinking of the u-turns having their own lane after their turn that would carry on through the intersection, but yeah theres always a specific lane to make a u-turn
@@YUMBL they have lanes cut into the median. Depending on the intersection you might have 2 choices in how you take the Michigan left: Right, u-turn, then straight, or the more common straight, u-turn, then right (left turns stay stacking left) which helps with efficiency. If there's a light at a u-turn, it's treated as if it's a right turn which makes it the only interaction I know of where you can turn left on red. The light allows drivers to move all the way over from left to right before thru traffic can stack at the light.
11:50 OMG this isometric view is so cool. Instant SimCity4 vibes.
While out walking the dog with my spouse today, they were complaining to me about the idiotic changes our city is making to the road their workplace is on. Due to the changes, vehicles are now going the wrong way into oncoming traffic to turn into popular destinations. My spouse used to turn left out of their workplace but now has to turn right. There is a light near where people make illegal u-turns; however, the cycle is stupidly short. So people trying not to be idiots driving the wrong way are stacking in the left-most lane to make that u-turn. Since my spouse can't reasonably get into that stack, they have to go over a mile to flip back around.
All of this reminded me of living in Michigan and the Michigan u-turn. They had never seen it before, so I explained it to them. Now with this video, I can show them. So thanks for that.
Glad to help :)
I've lived in MI for about 7 years now, and ever since I've wanted to see how the MI left intersection actually performs! Thanks for finally showing it off!
I'm glad stuff like this exist here on RUclips. Not too "flashy" yet not too "nerdy." Standing on post for 13 hours straight drains your brain.
It seems uncommon to see these brought up in cities skyline videos, Michigan Lefts are something I grew up with and live with, being from Metro Detroit. I appreciate this tutorial on them.
Just so people know, you can adjust the amount of lanes, and have these intersect with smaller (median-less) roads for a smaller foot print. Both roads don't need to have U-turns. You don't need a right turn dedicated to the U-turn lane, I never seen these in real life. A lot of the time the U-turn lane starts after the intersection, for the left traffic lane to merge into or keep going straight. We also have Michigan lefts on service roads around freeway on/off ramps (middlebelt and schoolcraft along I-96 for example).
I haven't played this game in a long time, and have no plans to again but these videos are so addictive to me. There is something I find inherently interesting about clever road and highway design.
Those shots in isometric and three quarters perspective at the end speak right to my heart 😍😍😍😍😍😍
This is a great design. I can see this handling high traffic intersections even a roundabout would struggle on. It can also be scaled down to use on smaller roads you expect to need to grow in the future - just reduce the number of lanes and you can add them back in as the traffic grows.
Being from Ohio originally and having spent time driving in Michigan, I love that you actually called these "Michigan Lefts". What I find more interesting is that these aren't usually set up to handle just a single interchange like you've shown, but there will be two u-turns for each direction (for two consecutive intersections) and sometimes, they'll even have a stop light just for the u-turns between the intersections. I was also recently in Texas (less than a week ago) and saw something similar there with one way frontage roads that run parallel to the interstates and then had u-turns at intersections where entrance/exit ramps connected the interstate with the frontage roads as well as a cross road. Very nice!
This intersection, and how you designed it within the paradigm of leveraging u-turns is, art. I try to show my wife how beautiful these custom intersections are but she just does understand us yumbl.
Love it. I'm from Michigan I've tried adding Michigan lefts to Cities this is a good take. In reality, many of these Michigan left turns also allow to go straight onto a "cross street" in addition to a U-turn. In this case the "cross street" doesn't actually "cross" the main boulevard, you can only turn right onto the boulevard and the former "intersection" is converted into two Michigan left turns coming from either direction off the boulevard.
Thanks for all these videos Yumbl! Started playing again after 2 years because of these kind of videos, and it's helping me a lot: ~80% traffic (no despawning)
You are the only one of the top builders that are not poking with the Airport DLC. I love it. The traffic series are insanely helpful. Thanks a lot.
As an anti-car person, you surprise me with your ability to somehow make intersections - usually a blight on the space they inhabit - seem beautiful in a way.
Much appreciated :)
@@luckyluke5638 ok?
@@luckyluke5638
No, people don’t know how to drive ever since they got their drivers license.
I would rather trust an AI driving self driving cars.
@@luckyluke5638 Anti-bicycle, too. I look up real world bike path projects for inspiration and the comments are full of people asserting that mass transit should be the only allowable form of transportation.
Trust the internet to take something positive and turn it into an argument
As someone who lives in Michigan and deals with these all the time, this is cool to see.
As far as crazy intersections go... you've heard about the Single Point Urban Interchange. Now get ready for the Dual Point Urban Interchange. An overpass with an intersection on both levels, controlled by a synchronized light cycle. Its major feature is that traffic from opposing directions can get green at the same time no matter their destination. Is it cursed? Yes. Do I regret making it? Not for a second.
Oh god no
Post a video on it!
When the flow on the Continuous Flow Intersection isn't continuous enough. :P
How do you deal with the left turns conflicting with the straights? As far as I know, any 4-way junction needs at least 4 phases to fully eliminate conflicts. Splitting that to 2 levels still gives you a green only about half of the time.
@@Pystro there are still 2 light cycles. It's not entirely free flowing.
To turn, you go onto the intersection on the other level, so that left turns don't conflict with straight through from the other side.
@@Gamesaucer Ah, I read that description wrong apparently. So what you have is basically equivalent to the 3-level intersection YUMBL asked us to name last time, but only on 2 levels, so that the straights have to go through a traffic light too.
Neat to see how this type of intersection would look with that kind of marking density. I've never seen anything like that here in Michigan, unfortunately. We're lucky to have turn guidelines at all
They are more frequent in SW MI
@@kmaricle91 how hard is it to say the states names
@@shukriwafiq5220 it's the appropriate abbreviation for it. Stfu nobody cares about your opinion.
I spent a few years in Michigan and there’s actually 2 ways to turn left. First is the way you have this set up, which is turning right, doing u turn then straight. The 2nd is going straight through the intersection, doing a U turn and then a right. I understand the 2nd option is harder to pull of gracefully in city skylines due to the AI and crossing more lanes but just thought you should know.
I know. This is just the more graceful option overall. No crossing traffic, and only one light required.
This makes much more sense than another "Michigan Left" design I saw where the U-turn traffic merged with the oncoming traffic. I didn't find it compelling enough to use. But the design you showcased here is much more sensible and efficient, and something I'd consider using.
The other design you mention is closer to real life, I think. I'm not sure I've ever encountered a real Michigan Left that has a dedicated intake lane for the u-turning traffic like this.
I've found more rural Michigan lefts just have you loop around and get right back into traffic, like this example. But in more densely populated areas (Woodward Ave in Royal Oak/Beverley Hills) they often have stoplights at the u-turns to allow those drivers to merge all the way over to the outside of the road after the U-turn itself.
@@rantingrodent416 Now that you mention it, I might have been remembering real-life examples, lol. Cities Skylines, Reality - who can tell?
@@Zorbino88 I grew up in Rochester, MI and have used Woodward Ave and Telegraph Road quite a bit with the Michigan Lefts as you mention. Unlike this video, besides the stop lights for the U-turn, I’d like to mention they can and do have more than one U-turn lane, which I think is a huge reason to add stop lights, but they’re very helpful in practice. Useful for people to know is these large U-turns work amazingly well for dealing with huge volumes of traffic at speed, of which Telegraph Road I’ve found I could synchronize my speed and put it on cruise control for easily 10 miles, at either the speed limit as it varied around 40-50 mph, or the higher speed typical in rush hour at around 70 mph, complete on the rough and bounding road, bumper to bumper with everyone else.
I haven’t lived in Michigan since 92 for a very brief time after college and starting my career/life away from home, but I’ve made it a regular practice where it is workable to practice an artificial Michigan Left even where the roads aren’t formally designed for it: it’s amazing how often the typical light cycles of roads with major intersections have more than 2 phases that make it work out well if you know what you’re doing. I can easily in some cases avoid multiple full intersection light cycles when I do this compared to all those turning left where I want to go.
I kindda like the initial "cursed" version of this. Looks like a star.
Commenting on pedestrian isles in the middle of the road: I hate these. Green phases for pedestrians are too short to cross to the other side if you don't start running immediately. Waiting in the middle sucks because even if the space looks big enough all it takes is a couple more pedestrians waiting and it begins to feel unsafe. Especially if you have kids with you and extra especially with a stroller. I live near one of those crossings (Germany) and have to cross diagonally to get to the train station. Takes ages.
That said, video is great and helpful as ever.
Reminds me of the first time i traveled to Michigan. All of the left turns in Ann Arbor and surrounding area were like this.
There’s a road that has several intersections like this near where I live. They’re referred to as “Thru-Turns”. This road doesn’t have a wide median, so the u-turns dump traffic into the far-right lane. The u-turns are located at intersections as well, so they act as both left turns and dedicated u-turn lanes.
I've enabled u-turns in some of my vanilla overpass intersections just because it's more realistic and uses more lines efficiently, but this opens up more ideas for u-turns!
Node Controller is truly a powerful tool
Ahh, when I first moved to MI and encountered the Michi-left for the first time, I was confounded. It didn't help that is was midnight and we were driving in an area that had no streetlights. Every intersection had no left turn signs. It was a fun few minutes.
I live in Michigan and more specifically Grand Rapids, so I use a lot of Michigan left turns everyday. I would say the on you made is a little different than the one i see everyday. The furthermost left lane is actually the dedicated lane for the u- turn irl instead of the right lane in your video. We go straight through the intersection to then make a U- turn going the direction we came then to make the final right turn.
2:36 "right now it looks terrible"
It's a Christmas miracle😃
Just getting back into Cities Skylines and you are inspiring me in so many ways, hope I can do justice. Got a lot to learn, and one learns by doing.
Thank you for awesome content.
Very inspiring intersection design! I'll certainly use this sometime in my bigger cities.
Already eagerly awaiting for it to be posted on the workshop so I can ditch the horrible attempt at this I haven't even made yet. Your intersections? _cheff's kiss_
As you can imagine by the name, there are fairly common here in Michigan, at least in urban superblock settings. I was in the car the first time my father encountered one when he was visiting from North Carolina, and I had to guide him through it. Him being a very, shall we say, socio-liguisitcally reserved type of person, it was amusing to hear him frustratedly say "Who the f-- Whose genius idea was THAT?!" I told him I didn't know who invented it, but around here, it's just a normal part of driving.
You seem to know what you''re talking about with regards to the intersection, so I thought I'd ask here: How is the intersection signposted? Is it signposted, or are you expected to 'Just Know'?
@@2001herne they show which lanes are for going in which directions with enough warning, and the lanes also tend to be painted clearly. I grew up in the Detroit area with these on the biggest surface roads with 40 mph+ speed limits where people are commonly doing 70 mph with the traffic lights, and either at the posted speed limit or about 70 mph you could use cruise control to drive easily 10 miles without stopping if driving straight through. Where the space exists for these, they’re great for moving huge volumes of traffic, even 70 mph bumper-to-bumper (the Detroit area has some interesting driving conditions).
Your stuff is always so cool, and the way you show us you to copy the design helps so so much, you make biffa look like a pre-schooler. Cheers mate.
I appreciate it, but be nice to Biffa. He’s a friend :)
Yet another intersection style to add to my list. Awesome!
I just recently did something different to solve a major traffic problem in my city. I took the idea of crossing over from the DDI and applied it to city streets. It's great for a built up area where you don't want to smash blocks of buildings. I replaced the existing 6 lane road with two 3 lane one-way roads that make traffic cross over at both ends. The roads go for 4 junctions and even through a service interchange. Traffic flows much smoother and I no longer have huge backups caused by cars waiting at a red light to turn left. It was a real pain to set up as the game was not intended to work this way but once it was finished it looks and works wonderfully. I keep finding myself just sitting and watching traffic move through it. No lane connectors either! And building deliveries/pedestrian access still works even though the buildings were built before I changed the roads.
Cool. I love watching you use Node Controller and absolutely push the game to it’s limits.
As a truck driver who frequently has to make stops in the Detroit area I absolutely despise Michigan lefts as they are often very very tight when hauling a 53' trailer.
They aren't the worst hassle in Detroit but they really make life harder for truckers especially when traffic is heavy.
I’m sure its awful
Always wondered how to overcome the issues due to left turning. I wish we had this as an asset, but will attempt a built. Thanks so much!
Admiral electron has built one for the workshop :)
10:28 - That logging truck must be in a hurry.
The Detroit boulevard turn- nicely done!
I recently saw a different video on thru-turns. Seems like it is extremely effective for a specific volume of traffic flow
One thing I just noticed is this type of Michigan Left intersection is rare generally it is a normal road meeting say a boulevard has the Michigan Left so some time you do need to go straight through than make the u to the turn right
And sometimes a u turn over a high way prime example you can see or dive is like I-696 and eleven mile
Damn this is probly my favorite intersection you’ve presented. Clean af
Yes, we have those all over in Michigan! You either hate them or love them. They usually work unless you get a-holes who like to speed and then you wait at the yield forever.
Is this available on your workshop?
The most beautiful part of the Michigan road
There's an intersection in Seattle that is similar to this idea. You are not allowed to turn left at the intersection, so they can keep traffic flowing. You have to drive several blocks away, then do a U-turn, then when you get back to the intersection turn right, or as you mentioned reverse it: turn right at the intersection, then do the U-turn several blocks away. It is incredibly frustrating to most actual drivers, but it DOES work to improve flow.
I have a video about U turn intersections as well :)
Lets brake the rules of intersection. Keep going with these types of videos.
Always blown my mind
Wow your builds are very enjoyable. And your end product and detailing is excellent as well.
- A viewer from India.
Thank you! :)
looks great, clever, I like it! I'm never disapointed with your intersections
11:45 Huuuuge SimCity 4 vibes with that camera/depth setup. Love it.
big urban intersections in mainland China commonly have U turns in the medians, but before the traffic light. The medians are also used to make signal phasing extremely efficient, but involving pedestrians having to pause in the median
Disney World uses a lot of these. They look really cool and add to the futuristic urban theming.
Nice! Let me know where one is
@@YUMBL they are at parking lot entrances. They are not as cut an dry as the ones in this video, but they do get the cars turned around going the right way.
I've never seen or heard of this design before, but I realise I've done exactly this on some rare occasions when I've just missed the turning traffic light and when it's safe to do so
That is very nice. It sounded much more complicated when you talked about it in earlier videos. You're always interesting, informative and inspiring; thanks.
I’ve never talked about it I dont think
@@YUMBL Not specifically but you've mentioned "the Michigan left" in passing a few times. I just couldn't picture it until now.
Have I? I still don’t think I have
Nice, love it, and looks much easier to setup vs continuous flow.
Very neat, David. You're very good at these intersections. Good job, Dude!
Thanks :)
Reminds me of the Melbourne hook turns, just bigger :D
Great video as always Yumbl
I love how in real life these would be messed up, but beautiful in the game
That looks just so bizarre. I love it.
The"going straight" sections could also be organized as an over/under pass that avoids the light. Right turning traffic child then merge in without a light too, meaning only left turning traffic would need the light. That could cut 10 seconds or more from the left turn time and better than halve the transit time of the rest of traffic.
I absolutely LOVE this YT Channel
I thought this was going to be something similar to what my dad calls the Cajun Left.
For those who don't know what that is, you see it a lot in and around New Orleans (which is why he calls it the Cajun Left). Basically, a lot of collectors have a drainage canal dividing their lanes, and only a few crossovers (which are U-turn only) between intersections.
If you're on the collector, and want to turn left to get onto one of the local side streets , you have to get onto the nearest crossover past the street you want to get onto, make the U-turn, and *then* make a right turn at your desired street.
Amazing thank you
The other day I was wondering if it would be possible to create the shibuya crossing from Tokyo. It’s that crossing where pedestrians are allowed to diagonally cross the intersection… I’m not sure if it would be a good idea in game for it sure would look cool
Diagonally crossing pedestrian intersections are quite common in RL it would be cool to see that in game as well!
Would love to see a tutorial on making an intersection featuring a HOOK TURN (or two-step turn). I’m from Victoria, Australia and they’re really interesting but I don’t know how I’d implement it in cities skylines
Make it share a cycle lane for extra chaos (and realism).
07:41 "you really don't want things getting Yumbled ..." 😂
I think this is my fav junction yet
I've seen versions of these IRL that have two lanes for U-Turn with traffics lights. And in my home town it jus a left turn lain and a yield sign and you just gotta merge into traffic on your own risk.
Somewhat similar to the "Seoul Left," as this is very similar to how it works there. Every major road in Seoul has U-turn lanes. If your destination is on the "wrong" side of the road you're traveling, you just hit the next U-turn, and double back. It keeps traffic moving, at least to the extent that is possible. Traffic in Seoul is crazy. I hated even getting into a car there. Public transport was often faster and always more relaxing.
Transit is always preferred :)
Lovely stuff. Would be brilliant to see these in Newmarket!
Going left by going right, is the first thing that comes to mind and it doesn't feel "right"!
Really like this one! You do good work, man.
THIS IS MY STUFF MAN!!! MICHIGANDERS STAND UP!!
But also there is a u turn lane in medians which I never see any other state using. It literally just is a turn around to go down the other way of a road
@@donger7443 Oklahoma uses them on all Four-Lane Divided Highways.
This is the pure definition of "turn left to turn right"
"You can stay in there all day if you like..." Loved it 😂
Very cool. Now we need a lets play to see it in a real city instead of the test map - along with some of the other intersections you've shown.
I had this idea, but for major highway interchanges. Center would just be one interstate crossing over the other. To go from North to West, just exit East, then stay in the acceleration lane until it takes a bridge that U-turns over the interstate back West.
Symmetrical, simple, merges on the right, fast ramps, and compact.
This description is for left hand traffic I assume?
While I don't have a fancy city design program, I've always been fascinated by traffic control. My active mind, and many wasted notebook pages has brot me to this conclusion:
Median U-turns cud facilitate traffic flow at most primary intersections while allowing for the reduction of highway side crossings.
The bad result is the weaving necessary to transition from an inside u-turn to an outside exit. Traffic on these roads must be slow and uniform across all lanes for inside u-turns to work.
Go cruise the interstates and beltways of Houston to see what I mean. They work .. but with a trade off.
It not a weave if oncoming traffic simply stops for the u turners
This is a form of art for sure.
I keep imagining a little cim version of Road Guy Rob walking around the intersection with his hi-vis vest....
Interestingly I didn't see any comments on this but you can get the same effect with just 2 U-turn spots. Same turning/distance amounts for every car. Those 2 spots will receive more buildup of traffic but it shouldn't be horrible
Then half the traffic would have to be allowed to u turn and cross to the outside, reducing capacity.
@@YUMBL ok, I see what you mean. It would not be too bad if it was on a 2-lane road, which is what I built my model on, but yeah on a 6 lane like this it would be supee dangerous and impractical. Thanks for responding!
I play a free android game(maybe it's on PC also) called Intersection Controller, by Shadowtree. It's very oriented towards single intersections/interchanges rather than large networks like Cities Skylines is. I think you woukd really like it, I encourage you to give it a try sometime.
I’d love to see some New Jersey Lefts or “jughandles” built in cities
LOVED this build
Rip semester exams. Yumbl here is giving us new intersections to build
I would love to see this but only having ones of the roads having the uturns instead of all of the roads. I live in Michigan and no intersection has all of the directions with a u turn
Agreed. But i gave the “continuous flow intersection” the same treatment
@@YUMBL makes sense. I would like to see the difference in traffic throughput if you only do the "main" road with the alternative left turns.
this reminds me of the jug handle interchange mostly seen in NJ and PA, wish more places used it tho its very intresting
I was just in jersey. Had to call it out every time we used one
@@YUMBL yee very nice. i trieed making them for cities skylines but always ended up being weird or broken lol. idk if peole can make em lol
Awesome vid as always! Oh, and here from recommended page again :D
Michigan lefts are amazing. My favorite junction to play with in game is the jug handle. Can u do it next?
Not a bad idea :)
We've got about two of these styles of turns in Melb, Aus. We call them P turns
There's more than one way to do a Michigan left, too.
I must build this concept with Factorio trains. I'm curious how well that would work!
There’s a bypass highway right by me that adopted this a while ago, it works pretty well :)
Subscribed, learnt quite a lot from you in terms of managing traffic and hope to learn a lot more!
Hey, thanks a lot! :)
. . . ok, the right-left-left (u-turn) is a bit more intuiitive than the right-right-right to effectively make a left turn - the only thing you have to do is to create a large enough buffer for the u-turning vehicles (depends on the traffic numbers and on the light switching frequency) and to provide a large enough radius for long vehicles / semi-trailers - which indeed is pretty space consuming . . . there is no absolute must for a dedicated / forced u-turn lane . . .
Yumbl, a.k.a. the magician of Node Controller
2:30 You say it looks cursed, I say it's a star
🤩🌟🤩
Personally I really liked how it looked and started wondering if it could be made to work
This is so satisfying to watch