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Suburbia Guide: Junctions, Cyclists and a Street With No Spare Room
At 2,000 metres the eight-lane bridge squeezes down into a single residential street: one lane going your way, one lane coming at you, lawns and driveways on both sides. It is narrower than any road before it, and it changes the question the game is asking. On the bridge you picked a lane. Here you read a whole neighbourhood — a cross street opening up ahead, a cyclist tucked against the kerb, someone stepping onto a zebra crossing, and the car in front braking for all of them. Everybody on this street can stop. You still can't.
Suburbia at a glance
| Where | 2,000 m to 3,000 m, between the Bridge and the Countryside |
|---|---|
| The road | Two lanes, one each way, split by a double yellow line. The kerbs keep you on the street. |
| What moves | Cars, the odd truck and cyclists in both directions, cross traffic at four junctions, pedestrians on zebra crossings for most of the scene |
| What kills you | Any vehicle, any cyclist, any cross-street crosser, a pedestrian on the stripes, a roadworks cone |
| Difficulty phase | Chaos until 2,500 m, then Nightmare for the rest of the street |
| Your speed | Still climbing — the 300 km/h maximum is still ahead of you |
What the street looks like from behind the wheel
After the open sea, Suburbia is bright and busy: a clear midday sky and an unbroken row of houses on both sides — clapboard colonials, low ranch houses, brick, stucco and stone, split-levels, the odd flat-roofed modern box. The lots have driveways, mailboxes, parked cars, basketball hoops, picket fences and trampolines, and people walk the pavements, plenty with a dog on a lead. In real life, a street like this would be signed for 25 or 30 mph.
None of that scenery is in play — the kerbs hold the car on the asphalt. What the houses are good for is stopping: a cross street shows up as a break in the row on both sides, with asphalt running off across the lawns and white stop lines painted across your road. That gap is visible well before the cars inside it are, so it is your earliest warning.
Every hazard on the street, and how it warns you
Cross-street junctions. There are four, coming closer together and busier each time. Cross traffic keeps to the right, as on any right-hand-traffic road: the near half of the cross street carries traffic from your left, the far half from your right. The crossers are mostly cars, with some cyclists and motorbikes, and none of them brakes, swerves or changes speed — a gap you see opening will still be there when you arrive. A crossing cyclist is slower, so it holds its stretch of road longer than its size suggests.
The car in front stopping. Traffic going your way stops and waits before every cross street, pedestrian crossing and roadworks. A car ahead that is slowing down is telling you about something beyond it.
Cyclists ride near the kerb in both directions and never change their line, but they are the slowest thing on the road, so you close on them fast. Pedestrian crossings run from your arrival until late in the scene: zebra stripes across the road with one person walking over, as lethal as a truck and not stopping halfway. Roadworks come once per run, a line of cones closing your lane. And oncoming traffic starts a few seconds after you arrive and runs to the end of the street, with some drivers in both directions wandering toward the centre line or right onto it.
How to drive Suburbia
Ride your lane, not the line. Every escape route on this street goes left into the oncoming lane, so sit a little left of the middle of your lane — but not on the double yellow, which is where line-hugging drivers from both directions meet. A car going your way that is hugging the line has left you a gap on the kerb side: pass it there.
Pass cyclists inside your lane. There is just room to slip between a kerb-side cyclist and the centre line without crossing it. A clean pass there is often a TIGHT or a RAZOR, with no exposure to oncoming traffic.
Take head-on shaves from the centre line. An oncoming car passing while you sit mid-lane is too far away to count. Drift toward the double yellow as it goes by and the same car becomes a CLOSE or better, at the double head-on rate (the How to Play page has the tiers). Few places in the game fill the shield meter as cheaply.
Decide each junction early. Before a cross street the road tends to go quiet: the car in front pulls up at the stop line and the oncoming lane empties. Go round the stopped car through that empty lane, then pick your gate. Read the near row first, because it reaches you first, and aim for where its gap will be — constant speeds make the prediction honest.
Pass behind the walker. On a zebra crossing, the half of the street the pedestrian has already crossed is safe. A car stopped at the stripes pulls away once the walker has passed in front of it: if the walker is heading for the oncoming side, the car ahead clears by itself; if they are heading for your kerb, it waits, and the way round is the lane they have just left.
Leave early at the roadworks. The cars waiting at the cones reach you before the cones do. Pull out before the queue, and only when the oncoming lane is clear for the whole closure.
Time the shield instead of saving it. An earned ghost fires the moment the meter fills, so you can't keep one for the next junction — but you choose when it fills. One shave short as a busy cross street appears? Take that shave on the last oncoming car or cyclist before it, and the ghost carries you through the crossers. The meter fades if you stop taking risks, and this street supplies plenty to keep it up.
Treat coins as reading time. A coin before a junction slows your approach and buys a moment to pick a gate — but the cross traffic keeps its own pace, so re-read the gaps after you collect it.
Arriving from the bridge
Before the bridge ends, the oncoming half of the deck drains, the remaining traffic lines up in the one lane that is about to become yours, and a ROAD NARROWS / 2 LANES gantry spans the deck. Then the eight lanes pinch in over a short neck and the narrowing edges herd you onto the street. The first stretch is calm, usually with a pedestrian crossing almost at once and the first oncoming car a few seconds behind it — settle into your lane before the first junction. Nightmare tightens things halfway down the street.
Leaving for the countryside
After the last cross street, the road runs straight on over a cattle grid — on real farm roads, steel bars over a pit that hooves won't cross — and widens a little as houses give way to fields. The oncoming lane comes with you: the Countryside is two-way too, and its slow tractors turn that lane into your overtaking lane. A century later this same street returns at midnight, with traffic that lands from the sky; the Suburbia 2126 guide covers what changes.
Suburbia questions
How do you get through the junctions in Brakeless?
Spot the break in the houses early, get round any car stopped at the stop line, then thread the cross traffic row by row — near row from your left, far row from your right, nobody changing speed.
Why does the car in front of me stop in Suburbia?
It is waiting for a cross street, a pedestrian or the roadworks. You can't wait, so pass it through the oncoming lane, then deal with whatever it stopped for. Real cars need a surprising distance to stop — the braking physics page has the numbers.
Can you drive on the pavements or lawns in Suburbia?
No. The kerbs hold the car on the street; the houses, yards and pedestrians on the pavement are scenery.