Streets were basically pure downside in most iterations of SimCity. There was almost no point to making them. The second you laid down some road, you were incurring more problems than you were solving. As one of the posters mentioned here, it was entirely possible -- and maybe even optimal -- to design cities entirely devoid of roads.
I distinctly recall more than a few rail-only cities that flourished a lot better than any of my road-based or mixed-transportation cities ever did. Seemed vaguely unrealistic, until I realized what SimCity is actually about. At its heart, SimCity is about two things: 1) Acquiring residents; and 2) keeping the lives of those residents as comfortable and stress-free as possible. (Seriously -- the game would require you to take this to almost Wall-E levels of extremity).
I distinctly recall more than a few rail-only cities that flourished a lot better than any of my road-based or mixed-transportation cities ever did. Seemed vaguely unrealistic, until I realized what SimCity is actually about. At its heart, SimCity is about two things: 1) Acquiring residents; and 2) keeping the lives of those residents as comfortable and stress-free as possible. (Seriously -- the game would require you to take this to almost Wall-E levels of extremity).