How To Turn Off Traffic Lights in Cities: Skylines

Two Intersections with traffic lights (Cities Skylines)

Here’s a quick step-by-step on how to turn off traffic lights in the base version of the game:

Step 1: Click on the Traffic Routes icon on the info views menu.

Step 2: Go to the Junctions tab of the Traffic Routes panel. This displays an icon at every junction that has (or can have) a traffic light on it.

Step 3: Click once on the traffic light icon to switch it off. The icon for a traffic light that has been disabled will be grayed out.

This traffic light icon is a toggle, so you simply have to click on the junction’s traffic light icon again to switch it back on.

Steps for toggling the traffic lights / Cities: Skylines
Steps for toggling the traffic lights

Alternate Method: Using the Traffic Manager Mod

You can do the same thing using the Traffic Manager mod. Click on the Toggle Traffic Lights button on the Traffic Manager panel.

Traffic Lights button on the Traffic Manager panel / Cities: Skylines

This will also bring up the traffic lights icon at the different intersections, allowing you to easily switch them on and off.

When To Remove Traffic Lights

Vehicle collisions don’t happen in this game, so for the most part you don’t even really need to keep the traffic lights on.

However, they can add a bit of realism to the look of your city, so it’s understandable if you want to keep them.

That said, here are two situations in which it’s generally a good idea to disable them:

1. If There Are Too Many of Them Close Together

Any intersections with a four-lane road will generate traffic lights. So if you use four-lane roads as “collector” roads that connect to your grid of local streets, you might end up with lots of traffic lights with very little distance in between them.

Six traffic lights close together along the same medium road. / Cities: Skylines
Six traffic lights close together along the same medium road.

In this case it’s a good idea to switch some of them off, especially if there isn’t a lot of traffic on those roads anyway.

2. If It’s Close to a Roundabout

Generally you want to avoid having any intersections too close to a roundabout, since you want to keep traffic flowing uninterrupted as it exits the circle.

But if you can’t avoid having that nearby intersection, at least switch the traffic lights off so there’s less chance of it holding up the traffic in the roundabout.

Liz Villegas

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Liz is a writer and photographer with a love for building and strategy games. Her spare time is often split between lifting, reading, drawing, annoying her dog Mr. Porky Butt, and squinting at stat tables on the wiki pages of whatever game she's currently playing.

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