I fixed some of these road issues in the latest release, and added those zone overlays that were missing. Still ironing out bugs in both these systems, but thanks so much for writing this up!
I find the election timer & promises mechanic to be fun and unique. Although it's easy to trick out by dropping taxes six months before an election, it also creates a great secondary goal and tension in the game.
There's another weird thing... I assume it's not a bug, but at times, the budget will suddenly drop by $300k and I have no idea what caused it. The charts on the budget page can be hard to line up with mayoral choices or events, especially if the events are older than a year or off the list already. The first few times it happened, I thought maybe some consultant fees or rezoning had caused it, but it would be nice to know. Some sort of ledger you could go back and look at, maybe?
Once into the meat and potatoes of city management, the game is great and really playable. For a new game, it's got a surprisingly good balance of complicated decisions to maintain growth and equilibrium. I think Will Wright would give a thumbs up.