There you go. The shorter route is the subways now so yes they will ignore the water.

Hi sittingbear: Here are a couple of mods for that annoying foot tapping:
I have this one in: No Route Fail Tantrum Animations by stevebo77 .
Here is another by stevebo77 which seems pretty popular:<a class="wiki_link_ext" href="http://modthesims.info/d/458694" rel="nofollow">No Foot Tapping While Waiting For Clear Route</a>.
I also use this mod for the subways
<a class="wiki_link_ext" href="http://modthesims.info/d/433960" rel="nofollow">Slower or faster subway mod</a> by claudiasharon

Thank you I found a couple like those at TFM when I was browsing through some of the mods other there.

@sittingbear .. forgot to mention TFM. Everything from over there is good sutff
You might have already thought of this but just a little trick I learned along the way. To avoid congestion at subways I move work places and schools in different areas and place subways. I know it is often desirable to have some of those community lots in a more centralized part of town but with the population going to work and school it can get messy. I recall spending a lot of time placing community lots all nearby each other to have them centralized in one section of town. Got the kids assigned to the two schools and workers assigned to their buildings. What a messy rush hour. On top of the adults going to work, the kids going to school, and other sims "visiting" lots, a couple of strays and a raccoon joined in the morning commute. It wasn't pretty!!

Just an update on the sims swimming in lakes or rivers to get to their destination. My Meadow Glen world has a lake/river encircling the whole town with land on the other side. I paid special attention to who or what was using the water to route to a destination. The deer and raccoons swim across sometimes and sometimes they use the bridge but I have yet to see any sims swimming across. A few of my sims still refuse to use public transportation but take taxis or use their own car or bicycle.

I had thought of that but I do have give credit that one thing EA did do right somewhat is how they did the spacing with community and rabbithole lots might have to edit a few to remove troublesome objects that sims get hung up or as in the case of Hogan's in Riverview replace it with the smaller Brunton's Boxcar Diner. When I'm in a custom I tend to copy the way they did the downtown and industrial areas.

I really have not played EA worlds in years. I think one of the worlds was Riverview and maybe one other. I gave IP a shot when that came out and have not touched it since. That one is the all time worst; at least to me it is. I put in Enekjaer IP and played that world for over 4 years. I'm kind of the opposite of the way you play custom worlds. I love moving things around and rebuilding.

Forgot to mention Brunton's Boxcar Diner. Never saw that one before. Are you using the one from the Exchange? In the past I never played with any of the diners or the Little Bistro until icarus_allsorts came out his Eat Outside Mod.

I just copy the arrangement they have when I play a custom world I usually build most of my own lots except for The Showtime and Season Lots.
Try Bridgeport that one is probably an even bigger routing mess

Bruntons Boxcar is in community objects in build/buy it's the small diner that came with Twinbrook

Here's what it look like in Twinbrook it sits on 40x40 lot there but you tell how tiny it is http://i347.photobucket.com/albums/p458 ... bljj3f.jpg