I found that as long as you don't make (many) intersections, your traffic problems stay light - long parallel lines of 4 lane roads that have a single cross street at 1 end and no traffic problems. I made a number of areas that are huge 6 lane 1-way loops with some smaller roads criss-crossing and no traffic problems there either. I've also put together areas with just traffic circles connected in 4x4 or 6x6 grids - did get some traffic issues after a while there though. At first I hesitated to do this sort of thing because it's inefficient with the city services buildings - Simcity 4 thinking here - but those buildings are way cheaper to build and maintain than they were in Simcity. Overall I'm finding the game a little too easy.