- Always choose extra Motorway, Bridge, or Tunnel upgrades.
- Choosing extra road tiles can also be helpful.
- Stoplights & roundabouts are almost always useless.

- Always create disjointed road networks that link houses and stores of the same color.
- Always try to avoid intersections, and do not mix your road networks.
- Short distances are key (1-2 houses for a Square, maybe 4 for a Circle).
- You don't need to connect every house if your stores are already good.
- Motorways are usually helpful with Circle stores & double-parking lot stores.
- If possible, try to reserve a spare motorway (similar to a "ghost line" from Mini Metro).

The important thing at this early stage is to keep everything separate, even if you have to loop around a little bit. Avoid intersections at all costs. This was a good start on Tokyo, taken after week 2, because my initial roads don't get in the way of each other. You begin with two bridges on Tokyo, but notice I've already taken +2 bridge upgrades which will be helpful later. The distances should be short at this point. Two houses per store is good.

Also, in the first couple weeks, if you start with a bad layout where the initial connections are proving difficult, you may just want to Restart now. It will save you the frustration later, at 1000 trips.

This is midway thru week 5, and those extra bridges are now in use. This isn't exactly a beautiful city, but even over medium distances three houses will be sufficient for the new stores. I've also picked up two Motorway upgrades, and I'm not particularly happy about Motorway #1, but that's just a temporary solution. (If I didn't have this second Motorway, I could also just intersect that pink house through the yellow road as a temporary solution.)

For the double-parking lot stores, you should properly connect the two different sides/colors for maximum efficiency (as shown here). These can be tricky so I don't hesitate to use my Motorways. The new blue Circles should be fine over such short distances, although I'll want to watch the one with only two houses. Hopefully that neighborhood gains a third later. Also note there are some unused houses at the bottom-left, but they're so far away that I am not even bothering right now. Maybe later they will become useful.

This screenshot is only a few days after the last one, but there are several subtle improvements already. New pink & blue houses on the left side allow direct connections, and I gain that awkward Motorway #1 back to reuse later. Notice all four of the initial pink/blue Square stores have now upgraded to Circles; this is why it was so important to establish a good road layout at the start!

I also added a bend to the white road at the top in order to connect that new pink house to the newest Circle... It's awkward, but a Circle should really have three houses minimum. You will probably need to shift / bend / redraw your road networks over time. Always try to leave yourself some spare room.

Starting to heat up! Notice I'm up to six bridges by now, but still only two Motorways. I slapped down one Motorway for a new yellow store that appeared (top), and I replaced the blue Motorway with bridges so that I could use the Motorway for two purple stores including a Circle. This is a reasonable solution but not perfect (two stores sharing the same Motorway). Ideally if I had another Motorway asset, I would split up the purples. Also if I may critique myself, it's possible to click on the #2 and drag the Motorway to smoothen out the curve and shorten the distance... I should've done that here.

One thing to watch going forward... The white houses (top-left) are starting to look a little messy, and that new white Circle (right) is really far away. This is going to need a Motorway pretty soon, because of the distance.

Only a few days later, a new yellow house spawned (center) that required another bridge, which I didn't have. So I modified the bridge network (bottom-middle) in order to conserve and reuse a bridge asset. These are the kinds of little tweaks / improvements you should always be looking for, especially as new houses spawn. But I think we can do even better...

Finally, my third Motorway, and I pause for a drastic redesign! First, if you notice the #1 Motorway from my previous screenshot, I actually replaced it with a bridge network here instead. The reason is because that yellow store is not a Circle, so it really doesn't need a Motorway.

Now I have two extra Motorways, and as aforementioned white needs one, so I connect that neighborhood to the white Circle directly. My #3 Motorway is somewhat problematic, and in fact it ultimately proves to be my downfall. It's never ideal to share a Motorway, and this choke point even includes the extra pink cars, too! I'm not sure what I could've done differently with only three Motorways, though...

(Note: if I had connected the Motorway to the other end of the parking lot, then cars would've driven THROUGH the parking lot to the second blue store... this is a bad strategy. I do not recommend this. Ideally, I needed an extra Motorway to split the blue into separate networks...)

Now in the midgame, you should probably take every Motorway you're offered, unless you're starved for Tunnels or something. (Note: Motorways cannot go over mountains!) Here is an example where a new yellow Circle spawned at the top, and I anticipated that 3-4 yellow houses all the way down on that island would be too far away to handle it. I had two extra Motorways, so I slapped one down to connect some new/unused houses (top right) and fix the issue before it became one.

Critiquing myself in hindsight now, it looks like I actually didn't need this #4 Motorway. I'm counting seven yellow houses on that middle island. The yellow Square to the left probably would've been fine with only two houses, and the other five houses could've probably supported that Circle over medium distance, although maybe not forever... Tough to say.

If you noticed on my last screenshot, my purple stores were almost overflowing... so this screenshot shows a much needed upgrade. I used an extra Motorway to split the purple neighborhoods into two separate networks. This has a huge impact on the traffic congestion, and by the next screenshot you will notice these purples are completely fine. (This is what I should've done with those nearby blue stores, if I wanted an even higher score...)

500 trips later, but not a whole lot has changed. A new purple store spawned on the right, so I used some extra bridge assets to connect a few unused purple houses. If possible, connecting new stores to unused houses is usually a good strategy. There is some slight overlap with the yellow roads here, but the traffic congestion over this stretch is low so I see no issues.

If you look carefully, however, I do have a problem elsewhere. Do you remember that blue Circle from the beginning with only two houses connected? Even over such a short distance, those two houses eventually become overwhelmed by the Circle's demand! (I never connected that extra blue house because it would've intersected with the pinks...)

This problem snuck up on me a bit and is going to require urgent attention, but luckily...

The game is right on time with my sixth Motorway upgrade, and I use it to connect that large, unused cluster of blue houses (bottom-left) to the overflowing Circle in need. Each of the newly connected houses sends two cars immediately, so this problem clears up before the pin goes critical.

As foretold, the two blue stores in the bottom-left became too congested sharing the same Motorway. (Note that one of them upgraded to a Circle at some point recently.) I snapped this screenshot hastily as the game was zooming in at the end, so you can't see the final score (2,704) but you can still see the full layout. In fact, this screenshot is instructive because you can see the two purple stores with the separated #2 and #5 Motorways are still humming along perfectly fine. But you can see at the right side of this screenshot how too many cars got stuck at once coming out of that blue neighborhood toward both stores, and that was the reason why the blue stores failed.

This screenshot comes from a different map (Rio) with tunnels, but the same strategies apply. This city reached 3,800 trips but here was my starting layout. Notice how each network is separated. (I would later split the greens into two separate road networks, because one of them became a Circle.) Notice how I'm not afraid to use a Tunnel asset to keep road networks apart. Note at the time of this screenshot (four weeks?) I've already taken +3 Tunnel upgrades and +1 Motorway, so I'm loaded spare assets. Finally, observe how I took special care to connect the different colors for the double-parking lot store, with no mixing. A good start will help you to go a long way!