Review: 60304 Road Plates

" the joining road is not signal controlled at the intersection which of course it not right at all!"

I just visited the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. This wouldn't matter at all there. Road signage aside, it is a beautiful place to be.

For myself, I think I will want to use some of these sets to connect different parts of my daughters' city. For example, there is not an every 32x32 baseplate's worth of space between the airport and Heartlake City. A few of these pieces will nicely fill the gap and make the road continuous.

I like these new roadplates very much. Thanks Lego for the improvement!

I like the flexibility of these. I don't have a road at the moment for my modular street but I might try adding one.

I do have old road baseplates (late 80s/early 90s version I think) but they are unused in the cupboard because they are too big for the space I have for my modular street.

I've seen a couple of suggestions for how the height issue can be solved with modulars and the new road plates, I'll be interested to see what people do who decide to switch to the new roads.

They will be super useful for big flat elevated structures, like SW landing pads or that sort of thing. Just replace the printed 2x4s with plain dbg ones and you’re good to go with a 32x32 square with just one set.

*sniff* Beautiful.

„Correct side of the road“ ??????
Reminds me of „Asterix in Britain“!

Looks like a good system. Just hope there will be some bends ahead!

I use grey 1x? Bricks to make SNOT roadway, and wider than any LEGO standard to date. It quite easily holds 6 stud vehicles, unlike most of the LEGO standards. Sorry, I definitely will not switch to this.

The only advantage of this new system of roadways for me is I can now easily build a proper-width runway for my airport. I much prefer the former style for everything else.

The question is what to do with several dozen sloped pieces? Each pack should only include two slopes in my opinion.

Not sure yet if I am a fan of the new road plates, but for now I will continue to snatch up all the base plates and road plates I can find at sales and auctions, etc. In my opinion, they will never go out of style.

Thanks for this review, they look fantastic. Lots of potential for fans’ custom layouts as well, integrating track and width of roads.

At least as interested in what somebody thinks about a new set am I in the part list for that new set. Heck, I am more interested in the part list than I am in what somebody thinks about that set! Can we see the part list, then, before we are told what somebody thinks about them?

Actually I don't like these roadplates. The only good thing is the printed 2x4 tile.
Previously you could do any kind of road layouts made of tiles layed on baseplates, whatever width you wanted. Why is this consedered as an improvement?
For the price of this set you can by 2x2 road baseplates. Ok, those don't include trees, traffic signs, traffic lights, etc., but make much bigger layout.

I'm guessing that curves are coming for 2022. I really love this system, the existing road baseplates have massive studded curbs that look unattractive. With hinge bricks, you can also make double-decker streets like the real-world Wacker Avenue in Chicago.

These are similar to Brio road pieces - they suggest parts of a larger road and allow children to extend the scenes in their imaginations (like how minifigs go up to the next floor without stairs).

I love the limited grid system of the base plates - easy, defined, customisable. And I can see the potential for the new system to extend and break out of those limitations, especially for space layouts: raised roadways leading to tall launchpads, maybe. Or cramped cities, or smaller layouts for people like me with less room for a permanent display. Or for a race track... they really need curves though.

There's nothing to stop anyone using a mix of green and grey baseboard for eclectic road widths (emulating the old Town backgrounds on set boxes), base plates and the new road system all mixed together.

The plus side to these is it will allow rail crossings to look correct in cities. The customization is endless. The negative side is what everyone will have to do to their modulars to make them look right.

@Huw - You should try visiting the West Coast of the U.S. sometime:
https://www.sftodo.com/sanfrancisco/crooked-street-lombard/:~:text=Lombard%20Street%20in%20San%20Francisco,hill%20past%20beautiful%20Victorian%20mansions.

@reardonmj said:
"In the USA lol?!? I love my curved plates. I’m not moving to this system anyway, I’m not redoing half a city layout in cobblestone. Nope."

Agree, I hope we can still get the other plates.

Now I think Lego can make us a 22.5 degree 8x16 wedge-like road plate (think similar to how 15706 A-frame 45degree plate's are used to orient a building by 45degrees) to allow us to build custom angles and curves into city roads.

Hm.. very torn on between these systems. The new one works fine but I think I prefer the looks of the old base plates, less pieces and just as usable as the new system.

The new layout is nice but, unfortunately the size of this New Road is smaller than the previous Road Base Plate. That one you can fit a Semi or Tow Truck, so on, easily. On this, those vehicles will be a little too big in size....

I do not plan on getting these, but for those who do plan on it and who want to do curves, I imagine a potential solution would be to use the current 32x32 curved road baseplate and use the ramp pieces to drop the level of the road when the straight road comes to a curve. The only problem is that the current generation of road baseplates are 20 studs wide and these are 16 studs wide. Though I imagine you could use 2 stud wide tiles on either side of the new roads to make them the same width as the current generation of roads. The problem would be the ramp pieces being 8 studs wide. LEGO would need to introduce a 4 stud wide version of them for this to work seamlessly.

I am a huge fan of these. I am an AFOL who has some road-plates. I look forward to the flexibility.

I'm in the group who will be stocking up on current baseplates.

For me, these are just going to be far too much hassle and would require a massive amount of extra work and parts to get them to work in any relatively simple-to-set-up modular-based layout.

In this set, there's a lot of wastage, with the plant pieces and the slopes, which you're just not going to use, when joining up multiples of these sections, and then you also have the issue of getting a huge load of extra plates and tiles to fill in the gaps between your buildings and the roads to create pavements etc.

Finally, as mentioned above, the 32x32 baseplates make it far simpler to re-arrange a layout in nice, easy to handle chunks.

@Angel_Clanger:
This is old hat for them. Anytime they design a part with a recessed studded area, that has no open sides, they divide the space up into 2x2 sections and make sure that every one of those has a Technic pin hole in the center. This makes it impossible to tile the surface in a way that prevents you from being able to completely strip the tiles loose. If you cover it with 1x1 tiles, you can get four of them to pop loose by pressing on their corners through one of the holes. Once you've got even a single tile free, you can go after the rest with a crowbar (minifig, not human). Plates are a bit trickier, as there's rarely enough room to get inside the pits with a brick separator, so you really would need to use the Technic holes to remove even the last of a group of plates.

The one exception I know of to this is the LEGO Wiimote for the Nintendo Wii. The studded pit is only 1x, so there's no way to incorporate Technic holes throughout (nor would it be practical to do so given the electronics located inside). Instead, they included an angled sidewall where you can fit the tip of a crowbar and pop a single tile free, giving you access to the next tile in line. The only problem here is that it assumes you tiled the pit. If you build it out with plates, there's really no good way to get the first one started. Furthermore, there were pictures of these Wiimotes that included a prototype brick separator which was a red 1-wide version of the current standard design, and which was eventually dropped in favor of the crowbar element. Since that never got produced, there's no tool that's specifically designed to make it easy to remove plates from a 1x channel. So, you could really get yourself into a pickle if you line those channels with long plates, as you might find that the only way to remove them after the fact is to grab onto the studs with pliers, permanently damaging the stud.

Ooh, I hope we get some of those 2x4 dark grey tiles with printed yellow lines at some point. In the USA and Canada, at least, yellow lines denote that the traffic goes separate ways, while white lines indicate that the lanes are going in the same direction. Of course, my Lego town isn’t set in America, so it doesn’t bother me—but the ability to modify the lines is certainly a big upside of these new road plates, as well.

I can see some benefits as a parts pack for Mocs but for a city layout I’ll be sticking to the old style road plates. I hope LEGO phases out the 32x32 style slowly as I’m sure a lot of people will be stocking up before retirement.

@Lego_Lord_Mayorca said:
"This review cinched it. I'm all in on this new roadway system. I did not buy enough of the road baseplates back in the 90s and early 2000s, and I really didn't want to have to commit to building custom roads to go between my modulars and other Town buildings. This solves all my problems, even giving me pieces to support rail crossings should any streets intersect with my railway. I guess this set will be the 2021 equivalent of the Benny's Space Squad for me, as I plan to buy immediately as many of these as I can get my hands on!

Plus, I can now save my classic baseplates for the countryside roads that meander outside the grid of the city!"

Just curious, how do you plan to handle curves? I hope LEGO eventually releases a curves pack but that's uncertain at this time. In the meantime or if they just don't come up with such pack, how would you approach curves in your city with the new road system?

Re: the curved roads joke

Oh we have them here in the US, the 495 beltway in Maryland is the bane of my existence

I only just got my first road baseplates (in a bunch of used parts from a non-AFOL friend's old collection), but I definitely think I'll be picking these up for one major reason: they'll make building road work so much easier! I like to MOC construction equipment (among other things), so the idea that I could integrate these plates with regular tiles and build underneath them is very exciting to me. I've always had an issue with baseplates being the definitive bottom layer of a build, even as a kid, so these are really cool despite my childhood dependence on (non-road) baseplates for play.

I'd definitely widen the roads by adding to them, or using extension pieces of some kind should they ever make more variety in this new system.

Overall the new roads seem cool, but I can easily understand that those who've invested in a previous system would have reservations.

I don't mind the basic road pack, but the prices on some of the larger City sets look to be a bit overpriced overall in terms of getting them mainly for the roads.

Now I'm hoping LEGO will release some Xtra road signs, and more of those glow in the dark lanterns, after all they already had 40311 Traffic lights and 40312 Streetlamps the other years.

@bricks4everyone said:
" @Lego_Lord_Mayorca said:
"This review cinched it. I'm all in on this new roadway system. I did not buy enough of the road baseplates back in the 90s and early 2000s, and I really didn't want to have to commit to building custom roads to go between my modulars and other Town buildings. This solves all my problems, even giving me pieces to support rail crossings should any streets intersect with my railway. I guess this set will be the 2021 equivalent of the Benny's Space Squad for me, as I plan to buy immediately as many of these as I can get my hands on!

Plus, I can now save my classic baseplates for the countryside roads that meander outside the grid of the city!"

Just curious, how do you plan to handle curves? I hope LEGO eventually releases a curves pack but that's uncertain at this time. In the meantime or if they just don't come up with such pack, how would you approach curves in your city with the new road system?"

So, of my original 90's LEGO Town road plate collection, I own a few curves that I plan to integrate into my layout in the interim. I know this means the transition area from dark bley plate roads to old light gray baseplate roads will look funky, but I really plan to keep curves in the countryside. My particular layout is constrained to a narrow, rectangular space that will favor a grid layout of streets, anyway. Perhaps a well-placed railway crossing will handle the transition from straight, dark gray streets to the curves of the wilderland just outside the city limits.

@Lego_Lord_Mayorca said:
" @bricks4everyone said:
" @Lego_Lord_Mayorca said:
"This review cinched it. I'm all in on this new roadway system. I did not buy enough of the road baseplates back in the 90s and early 2000s, and I really didn't want to have to commit to building custom roads to go between my modulars and other Town buildings. This solves all my problems, even giving me pieces to support rail crossings should any streets intersect with my railway. I guess this set will be the 2021 equivalent of the Benny's Space Squad for me, as I plan to buy immediately as many of these as I can get my hands on!

Plus, I can now save my classic baseplates for the countryside roads that meander outside the grid of the city!"

Just curious, how do you plan to handle curves? I hope LEGO eventually releases a curves pack but that's uncertain at this time. In the meantime or if they just don't come up with such pack, how would you approach curves in your city with the new road system?"

So, of my original 90's LEGO Town road plate collection, I own a few curves that I plan to integrate into my layout in the interim. I know this means the transition area from dark bley plate roads to old light gray baseplate roads will look funky, but I really plan to keep curves in the countryside. My particular layout is constrained to a narrow, rectangular space that will favor a grid layout of streets, anyway. Perhaps a well-placed railway crossing will handle the transition from straight, dark gray streets to the curves of the wilderland just outside the city limits."

All right, glad you've figured out an approach that works for you. I don't have a LEGO city but I'm really curious about how people who do will adapt to this change if they choose to. There is a YouTube channel called Bevins Bricks run by an AFOL who uses his own road system (which has some similarities with the new one offered by LEGO) and showed his approach to curves. The lines don't look a smooth as I'd like  but it's an interesting approach nonetheless.

I think these are going to be really handy for building elevated highways. My Ninjago City could use some decorating ;)

"There should have been at least one more set of traffic lights: the joining road is not signal controlled at the intersection which of course it not right at all! Alternatively, the provided lights could have used the new 1x1 bricks with studs on two adjacent faces to allow lamps to be fitted to two sides at right-angles."
^ I have no idea if I'm reading this right or not but, they have traffic lights at T-intersections? I've only ever seen yield or stop signs for the joining road.

"Curved road are going to be impossible to recreate without resorting to DIY with a lot of tiles, but that probably won't worry those of you in the USA :-)"
^ If you're talking about city building that's probably true but with the amount of green in this set it seems to be more of a park or highway, and those roads are *super* curvy. We've got one out of town that literally wraps round a set of hills to cross a river and get above a valley.

Have any of you ever been to Saskatchewan? That’s where the no curved roads joke really applies. Of course, you don’t need any traffic signals or crosswalks for Saskatchewan roads either. I believe this is what cruise control was invented for. If you had perfect alignment on your car, you could set the cruise control and take a nap while driving across Saskatchewan.

Thank you very much, this is a great review, unveiling the new pieces. (For some reason though, I find the "puns" more insulting and biased than funny - still from Europe...)
I did not see it added yet, but these road plates seem to be highly compatible with the 6063310 8x8 elements released earlier (eg.: 10767).

From my perspective, these come at a great time. I have just now really reached the means to start a city layout, so I can plan it with the new baseplates and not have to swop out anytime soon.

I prefer road baseplates as they come with included parking space on the roadside. With a few modifications I've made my Downtown Diner a corner building and connected it to the road plates with tiles, while all other road plates are connected to each other with flower planters between the parking spaces.

Looks nice, looks much sturdier than baseplates. But they also look much more expensive and with less surface area. I'm not sure if I'm a fan.

@Aanchir said:
" @PDelahanty said:
"* This is definitely a valid criticism, but it also applies to all the road baseplates of the past decade and a half — the only set EVER that had the same road width as the current road baseplates but with a solid center line is 10159-1 . All other road baseplates have either had narrower roads or dashed lines like the current ones.
."."

not entirely true, since set 10159 came in 2 versions ( 10159-1 and 10159-2 , wich both had different piece counts), it is technically present in 2 sets :p

@stratiformus said:
"I would have preferred a matt surface, glossy looks.... hazardous...."

Exactly what I first thought - a shame they aren’t like the large 6x16 tiles that have a Matt surface - black would have been nicer too.

My city uses a canal system like Ninjago so I won't even be thinking of these as roads. However they could perhaps be good for raising up buildings in my city.

LEGO create hundreds of new moulds every year, so I’m sure it’s not beyond their expertise to bring to fruition a set of curved road pieces. There’s always the chance that they could do this and make them incompatible with these road plates, but then again we might be really lucky - you never know.

I really think Lego designed these new road plates only with children sets in mind, as children's play sets. They work fine on their own, or can be linked with other sets to enhance play. It is probably why there is no curved road plate. It just keeps it simple.

I don't think they ever had in mind these being used by AFOL's and the way they like to have a city layout. Maybe we will see 18+ road plates with more advanced options on base plates that work better with the modulars.

@GSR_MataNui:
It depends on the size of the roads, and how much traffic they get. Near where I live, there's a T intersection with two thru-lanes in each E/W/S direction, two westbound left turn lanes, one eastbound turn lane, and three northbound lanes in a double-Y split (one left, one right, and the center one can turn left or right). Absolutely they put a stoplight there. Freeway exits often T at stoplights as well.

@PurpleDave said:
"Left is a bit sinister."

I had to read it twice, but this is brilliant.

As for the road system, I think it's useful for Lego City, seeing that it had ditched baseplates a long time ago. I just hope they keep the baseplates for the Modular Buildings, as it would be a huge inconvenience with little benefit to switch over to regular plates for those.

@Explorer6890 said:
"Looks like useful pieces for building flat city rooftops, with options to install helipads, water tanks, billboards and so on. Meanwhile, the classic space fan in me imagines a landing pad constructed using 4 pieces of 16x16 plates with lights placed at strategic locations to form a circle, a spaceship with a cavernous cargo hold using 16x16 plates as the roof and the floor, and a ground base with walkways connected to several individual16x16 plates which serve as landing pads for an assortment of small spacecraft. Can't wait to see creations using these as "space plates"!"

Agree, I will be using the 16x16 as floors and roofs of space hangers, with the pedestrian walkways placed at 90 degrees to form landing areas. Only problem is I will need several sets so will get expensive but I will save a fortune on tiling 16x16 plates. Did anyone notice that the old Lego tree has reappeared?

There are some things that annoy me with this system. For example, there is no way to have a non-broken line in the middle of the road (no overtaking). However, since realistic larger roads will likely require two of these side-by side, I guess adding them won't be much of an issue.

Overall the biggest gripe will be - how to easily connect them to baseplates now that they are actually higher than a tiled baseplate. I'll have to rebuild all my modulars to raise them by one plate or more to match the height of the new road.

@TeriXeri said:
"I don't mind the basic road pack, but the prices on some of the larger City sets look to be a bit overpriced overall in terms of getting them mainly for the roads.

Now I'm hoping LEGO will release some Xtra road signs, and more of those glow in the dark lanterns, after all they already had 40311 Traffic lights and 40312 Streetlamps the other years."

You could probably get the parts from Lego online bricks and pieces.

"I have positioned them differently to that shown on the box, to account for vehicles driving on the correct side of the road."
Uh huh. So that drivers can safely get to gas stations where they can buy donuts, cookies and bags of Lays chips.

Would also love to see how the new (!) Speed Champions fit!

@CCC said:
"I think they look great but could have been improved. That zebra crossing, instead of having just the centre hole (why? Odd choice) remove all the stripes so it is completely customisable. It could be a plain road extension or crossing or tiled in a different way for drains or manhole covers and so on."

Was my first observation too. LEGO always seems to *just* miss the mark on having something great for customization and then they miss one spot like this. They'll probably come out with the one with all studs down the middle but sell it in a pack with like train flex track so you have to get a bunch of something you don't want to get one, but they'll have 2 painted ones in every pack of 1 larger plate so you end up with tons of ones you don't need.

It's too bad (tho physically impossible to engineer otherwise) that these are mutually exclusive with existing baseplates. My entire city is on traditional baseplates, from the modulars to the Creator 3-in-1s to the old Century Skyway and Central Precinct HQ. These would be a great road solution but would require re-engineering the entire thing - plus, I would lose some of the bespoke baseplates that subtly augment the set like the one in 6389 Fire Control Center.

The real question is do they keep the modulars backwards-compatible? These new plates won't work with them even as only a street scene due to the modulars' lower height resulting from the old baseplate.

@Spike730 said:
"I wonder what the 2022 modular building will use. I hope they keep the old baseplate."

I think that they are keeping the baseplates the same, but the roads are getting changed. So, I don't think you need to worry.

In my head I’ve long been thinking of this kind of system and along the lines of the old monorail track, but with some key differences to these new plates:
- as thick as a single plate plus baseplate
- the road would just have a single row of anti-studs along each edge, and recessed by the thickness of a normal baseplate
- this would enable them to overlap and work with existing baseplates (so quite a bit thinner than these new plates) and be the same height as, say, a modular building street
- they would be locked together with (2x4?) pieces of existing baseplate
- the surface would be textured, like real road (these are only shiny because of the need to match the inserted 2x4 tiles)
- sections could be used alongside one another to create 2, 4, 6 etc lane highways (though curves would be a problem due to differing radii
- could include ramp sections to build elevated roadways
- they could still be used for elevated roads, and they could have more anti-studs underneath for more creative supports than just along the edge

Thoughts?

Really excited for these to come out. Thanks for the review??

This is quite a bold change if you ask me, even if i've always wondered why were baseplates given an specific height, not matching anything else. The last time i remeber there was a change this big, was when I moved from electrified train tracks to the plastic ones. For this reason i think is naive to believe that Lego will keep both new and old system for much longer. I think there will be a bunch of pleople (like me) that will stick with the old system, basically cuz if you have a large layout it would be both impractical and expensive to redone it. As for new AFOLs, i see some highlights to the new system, as they seem, like the article says, more "modular". You can build bridges, avenues and even roofs with them. So, i see a lot of potential here.

But base plates aren’t out of system. They have a half-plate thickness, the same as brackets, so with a little bit of SNOT building, you could get a baseplate and regular plate to connect. I really don’t get the argument for baseplates being doomed to be retired because they’re not in-system. If so, would brackets also be on the way out? The new road plates just unnecessarily jacks up the price and raises the barrier of entry to starting a LEGO City. The only use I see for these are raised highways.

Then again, as I don’t build with baseplates anyway, I really shouldn’t be so fussed. I prefer to SNOT-build all my roads and road markings to guarantee full customisability and dexterity. I feel that LEGO is missing the point with these new “ultra customisable” road plates. If we wanted an “ultra customisable” road, we would just brick-build one, thank you. And hey, SNOT-roads allow for curves.

P.S: I’m surprised nobody has mentioned how ugly the gaps between the 2x4 tiles and the larger road plate piece are. So unsightly!

@M_Jibril:
Yeah, I like to sneak stuff like that in periodically.

@ambr:
What you you mean "reappeared"? Since the small pine tree first showed up in 1986, the only two years when it has failed to be included in a new set are 1994 and 2005. The large tree had an unbroken run from 1971 to 2013, and only missed 2014, 2016, 2019, and 2020. The deciduous tree has a lot more breaks, which might explain why I apparently don't own even one of those.

@Sammael:
The easiest way to raise Modulars up is to just shim them with baseplates. A baseplate stacked on top of another baseplate is roughly the same height as a baseplate with a layer of plates on top. The easiest way to build the new roads onto the old roads is to not actually do it at all. The tip of those ramps is probably very close to the thickness of the road surface of a baseplate. If you simply build right up to the edge without going over, it should look fine.

There are curved slopes that should allow you to match the slope of the sidewalks and roads to each other (stairs are another option). Build retaining walls to cover the edges of any blocks that sit higher than the surrounding sidewalks.

@yamaki:
I think bordering on "sprawl" is pretty accurate. These roads are 16-wide. The bodies of the new Speed Champions are 8-wide, so right there two of them will scrape each other driving in opposite directions. The fenders and sideview mirrors stick out even wider, so those will all get smashed up and knocked off when passing. But it's not as bad as the first "minifig-scale" Tumbler, which was 18-wide, meaning the rear wheels can drive on the sidewalks on both sides of the street simultaneously. And the flick-fire missiles add another two studs width, so keep those streetlights safely back from the curb!

I feel like people don't realize that these roads aren't just for 6/8 wide cars. Those 16x16 plates don't have any print lines on it, meaning that if you take one and put it next to another, you can place the road line between those two, making it a wider road and fitting for up to 16 wide vehicles.

@TheRightP_art said:
"But base plates aren’t out of system. They have a half-plate thickness, the same as brackets, so with a little bit of SNOT building, you could get a baseplate and regular plate to connect. I really don’t get the argument for baseplates being doomed to be retired because they’re not in-system. If so, would brackets also be on the way out? The new road plates just unnecessarily jacks up the price and raises the barrier of entry to starting a LEGO City. The only use I see for these are raised highways.

Then again, as I don’t build with baseplates anyway, I really shouldn’t be so fussed. I prefer to SNOT-build all my roads and road markings to guarantee full customisability and dexterity. I feel that LEGO is missing the point with these new “ultra customisable” road plates. If we wanted an “ultra customisable” road, we would just brick-build one, thank you. And hey, SNOT-roads allow for curves.

P.S: I’m surprised nobody has mentioned how ugly the gaps between the 2x4 tiles and the larger road plate piece are. So unsightly!"

I agree that baseplates don't HAVE to go away (and with the modular buildings continuing to use them I doubt they will).

But in one breath you complain that these jack up the price and barrier to entry for a Lego City, and in the next say that people who want customization should jump directly to even pricier and more technically demanding brick-built roads. It goes without saying that that can be a huge ask for any but the most dedicated hobbyist.

These, on the other hand, provide much greater potential for customization than the old road plates while being cheap and simple enough to use even for young builders. Yes, the cost may add up more for builders of giant layouts if they want to convert everything over, but almost no builders start out that way—they start with a small collection and build outward. And that's really not much more of a challenge with this new system than it was with the old road plates, which themselves were wildly inconsistent over the years and required a great deal of adaptation to work naturally with most other sets.

I don't get the point of the 2x4 gaps in the middle of the road that have to be filled by a tile. Are there some customising options I'm missing here? The 1x4 gaps at the edges for connecting tiles I understand, I just don't get the big holes in the middle.

Nah. Not a fan of this. It is not compatible with the old system which is the biggest fail. People who already have a city with tons of the old plates are not gonna use this. I don't see how this could be effective used with the modular buildings as well. Also imo these are too thick and heavy and gonna be more expensive as well. If it's good why change. Not to mention this could be created with current existing pieces. I also see this as another greedy attempt by lego to make more money.

I see that New Elementary suggested placing the Modular Buildings directly on top of plates and putting them next to the new road plates. I must say it looks surprisingly good like that, as it makes the sidewalk of the Modular a plate higher than the road.

Three words:
HATE THIS SYSTEM

I’m going to reserve final judgment on these until I see how they look in a larger town setting.

First impression though is that these are very ‘juniorised’, consistent with the upcoming city sets that they will initially come with. The scale seems slightly off, and the road lines are just terrible. I’m not sure some of these reviews are applying enough critical analysis here, presumably because the reviewers don’t want to upset Lego.

They also seem impossible to combine with existing road plates which have been around now for 40 odd years. In one move, Lego have made redundant many of the classic town builds that utilise modified road baseplates - early police stations, gas stations, houses etc. Annoying at best for people who love collecting these and don’t really want to incur the design pain of moving them somehow across to this system.

Still, the jury is out until these have been bedded in to some town layouts.

@M_Jibril said:
"I see that New Elementary suggested placing the Modular Buildings directly on top of plates and putting them next to the new road plates. I must say it looks surprisingly good like that, as it makes the sidewalk of the Modular a plate higher than the road."

Agreed!

Honestly, that technique of setting the entire baseplate on top of a studded surface to bring it in line with plates was already widely known and popular among a lot of Town builders who had created or adopted custom road systems like MILS. There are forum discussions more than a decade old where AFOLs mention using this technique (for example: https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/24855-techniques-to-build-a-tabletown/).

The biggest drawback to that approach is that the driveways of sets like Fire Brigade and Corner Garage are ALSO a plate higher than the road, but of course, the old road baseplates had the same issue. At least with these road plates, builders have a wider range of customization options to choose from if you DO prefer less of a bump for vehicles entering those driveways. @M_Jibril said:
"I see that New Elementary suggested placing the Modular Buildings directly on top of plates and putting them next to the new road plates. I must say it looks surprisingly good like that, as it makes the sidewalk of the Modular a plate higher than the road."

Agreed!

Honestly, that technique of setting the entire baseplate on top of a studded surface to bring it in line with plates was already widely known and popular among a lot of Town builders who had created or adopted custom road systems like MILS. There are forum discussions more than a decade old where AFOLs mention using this technique (for example: https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/24855-techniques-to-build-a-tabletown/).

The biggest drawback to that approach is that the driveways of sets like Fire Brigade and Corner Garage are ALSO a plate higher than the road, but of course, the old road baseplates had the same issue. At least with these road plates, builders have a wider range of customization options to choose from if you DO prefer less of a bump for vehicles entering those driveways.

@CrimsonFury said:
"I don't get the point of the 2x4 gaps in the middle of the road that have to be filled by a tile. Are there some customising options I'm missing here? The 1x4 gaps at the edges for connecting tiles I understand, I just don't get the big holes in the middle. "

There are a lot of features you can add like median strips or traffic islands (as illustrated in the article that @benbacardi linked to), and some of the sets also show how these extra connection points can be used for applications other than roads, like a skate park or street hockey rink.

Also, by having the road stripes as a separate printed piece, the road markings themselves become much customizable. Currently, these sets only feature two dedicated options for this purpose (Dark Stone Gray 2x4 tiles with or without a white center stripe). But in the future, this could easily be expanded further with options like yellow center stripes, disabled or reserved parking space patterns, arrow patterns for turn lanes/exit lanes, or various text-based patterns ("STOP", "SLOW", "FIRE LANE", "BUS LANE", "NO ENTRY", "KEEP CLEAR", etc).

I feel it is OK to not have curved sections. A "T" is sufficient for the purpose of a curve. Also I think the curved baseplates are a waste of space. On the other hand....I have tons of baseplates and maybe I should sell them on eBay :)

I think for me and all the old AFOLs the baseplates including the road baseplates are and will be essentials.

The new roads will be useful for elevated highways (also can be make with the 8x16 tile dark bluish gray and same little tiles white and DBG) the cost also will be very elevated.

For the oldest will always remain the used baseplates (BL, ebay, etc) and the 3rd party from Aliexpress, road and normal baseplates including more colors very useful for Heart Lake City

I think I'll stock up. I've always wanted to make a display that looked better than just random cars and lorries sitting around on a shelf, this might be just what I need.

How about Cats-Eyes using grey jumper plates and transclear round tiles?

@lamby750:
I'd never heard of those, and had to look them up to determine that yes, they're similar to what I thought you were talking about. In the US, regions with little or no snowfall sometimes use a lane market called "Bott's Dots", which are raised bumps in the appropriate color (yellow or white). California is the only place I've encountered them, where they were mandated for public roads in areas with no snowfall. Now they're shifting away from exclusive use of them because self-driving cars have trouble seeing them. I don't know how Cat's Eyes manage to survive plowing in the winter, but Bott's Dots would pretty much be destroyed.

Near where I work, I recently saw how MDOT keeps the painted lines on roads from being peeled up with the first pass of a snowplow. They actually grind the surface of the road down about 1/8-1/4", and then paint in the recessed area. Not only does this roughen up the road surface so the paint will adhere better, but the painted lines actually sit low enough that there's no way a plow will hook the edge and rip them loose.

What is the ice cream truckish vehicle that is shown on the road plates?

Apologies for the slight threadjack, but I'm a new LEGO enthusiast and I'm trying to track down some interesting sets. Thanks in advance! :)

I can't wait to get my hands on some of these and incorporate tram tracks, bike lanes and parallel parking spots

These look like they’d integrate with parts like 6112762, of which I have several from Cars 3 sets and others. I think they’d also be easily arranged and rearranged in conjunction with sets like 60232 Garage Centre, which will make my kids happy.

@Daveismyhero said:
"What is the ice cream truckish vehicle that is shown on the road plates?

Apologies for the slight threadjack, but I'm a new LEGO enthusiast and I'm trying to track down some interesting sets. Thanks in advance! :)"

Looks like set 60253.

These are great! While the original base plates are good, these give some great options for building (even outside the intended road use). Four lanes with median, raised highway, parking lots, warehouse floors, ship decking, space craft hulls, and so much more

This kind of reminds me of the Mario sets. They look kinda nice, but yeah, way too small, expensive, not very compatible with base plates, less flexible use, raised... I don’t have a city, but if I did I’d be buying out road plates rn

Might be I'm getting older. And that's the reason I do not like this new set. Maybe me opinion will change later.

From my point of view: LEGO has to make some sets together in a Bonus/Value Pack, e.g.:
60237: Curves & Crossroad OR 60236: Straight & T-Junction
AND
40311: Traffic Lights AND 40312: Streetlamps AND 40310: Botanical Accessories. It could be a good option for all to have road plates with useful accessories.

LEGO said goodbye the traditional 32x32 road baseplates in City sets, the last buildings - built on classic road baseplate - came out in 2011 and I do not know, why did LEGO give this up?
See: https://brickset.com/sets/tag-Road-Baseplate
I did a random search, I found there's no baseplates/road plates in the following sets: 60097: City Square, 60132: Service Station, 60154: Bus Station, 60200: Capital City, 60233: Donut Shop Opening sets.

And now LEGO builds sets on this new Road Plates.... wait, what?

BTW the streetlamp with 1x2 glow in the dark plate would be great to see in other sets in the future (e.g.: re-freshed streetlamps Xtra set).

@George_P_:
I suspect it's a combination of having to farm out the production of baseplates in general, and not being able to pack roadplates in any box smaller than 10"x10" internal dimensions.

@ResIpsaLoquitur said:
"...I DON'T LIKE CHANGE."

I welcome change... as long as nothing is altered or different ;)

@tanyara:
I welcome change, as long as it's primarily quarters, and not a lot of pennies. Silver dollars would actually be pretty cool, because they're worth more than face value.

As much as I like innovation, and the possibility to customize the road, e.g. the pedestrian crossing etc., I feel like this review does not address the negative aspects of the new system, especially when looking at existing clients of LEGO.

No compatibility with the old plates and modular buildings. I shouldn't have to find some weird workaround to level out the streets and the buildings

A steep price increase for less street coverage

This will make a lot of people look at cheaper alternatives. A competitor offers 4x the plates for half the price - without having to artificially adjust the height of my existing base plates.

I don't feel that this was a step in the right direction.