The people wanted Lego bike paths, and Lego is finally listening

A thousand years ago, in 2019, a regional councilor in the Netherlands named Marcel Steeman took on a seemingly impossible challenge: to convince the makers of one of the most popular toys in the world to do something different.

He wanted Lego, the toy manufacturing company based in Billund, Denmark, to add cycle paths to their small, brick-built towns.

For years, the streets in Lego city sets – once called base plates – had room for cars, people, even small runoffs, but no designated lanes for zero-emission human-powered vehicles such as bicycles. Worse, it seemed that Lego streets had become more hostile to pedestrians and cyclists over time. Compared to Lego sets from years ago, the cars seem to have gotten bigger – evolving from four to six studs wide – and the roads seemed to get wider, while the sidewalks getting narrower.

“It really stood out that Lego City is such a car city,” Steeman told me in an email.

Steeman posted his bicycle lane proposal on Lego’s “Ideas” website, where enthusiasts can share and vote on each other’s ideas. Really popular ideas can get the chance to climb the ladder and become part of an official Lego set – although only 33 have actually been produced in the 13-year history of the program. The ideas range from elegant, like this incredibly accurate-looking violin, to quirky, like this map from JRR Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Others have gotten enough support to transition to full-fledged Lego sets, like this recreation of the famous brownstones in Sesame Street.

Steeman’s idea caught the attention of Marco te Brommelstroet, associate professor of urban design at the University of Amsterdam, who tweeted under the name Cycling Professor. And one of Brommelstroet’s tweets caught my eye, prompting me to write a story asking, “Where are the bike paths in the Lego world?”

But as the idea gained traction on social media, Lego remained frustratingly silent. And Steeman’s posts on the Lego’s Ideas site were consistently rejected. “I’ve tried several times,” he said. “Sometimes [they were rejected] for no reason, once with reason it was just a political statement and not a set, and that really confused me. “

Rendering by Marcel Steeman

Several people who suggested Steeman’s idea of ​​adding bike paths to Lego’s street scene tried to contact the company, but to no avail. (A spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on my original story, nor on this most recent story.)

In the meantime, Steeman and Brommelstroet continued to dig into the history of Lego and discovered that in the 1980s and 1990s, the company did produce street slabs with small cycle paths painted green. But eventually the lanes disappeared, and in the years that followed the roads got bigger, and the Lego cars grew from four studs wide to six studs to eight studs.

Not only that, but they also learned that the absence of bike lanes may have something to do with Lego’s supply chain. Thalia Verkade, a journalist who was working with Brommelstroet on a book about mobility, discovered that Lego hired a subcontractor for the road plates, which were among the last pieces made by a company other than Lego itself. According to Verkade, Lego was trying to buy the contract to return production of the street slabs to their own facilities, Steeman said.

Around the same time, Matthew Ashton, an official Lego Master, hinted in a tweet that there would be a new form of roads to the city of Lego “in the not too distant future”. “A cliffhanger,” said Steeman.

Steeman worked all this time in his position as alderman for the province of Noord-Holland, where he regularly tackles issues in the field of mobility. When the pandemic hit, Steeman switched to working from home and shared the third floor of his house with his 9-year-old son and all of his Lego. “There is Lego everywhere,” he said, “and I have to tilt my camera up to save face during the many digital meetings I have for work.”

Just before the pandemic, Steeman got wind of rumors that Lego would revolutionize its road network by using adjustable sets and real bricks, not just the big flat slabs, as a way to play with road designs. That would make it possible to include pedestrian crossings and speed bumps – and maybe cycle paths?

Those revamped street sets (# 60304) were finally released last year, along with a small shopping area (# 60306) with a pretzel shop, a sporting goods store, a pedestrian crossing, some street lights and – finally – a thin blue bike path.

Screenshot: Lego

Steeman was shocked, but instead of resting on his laurels, he immediately inventoried all the ways this updated street scene still didn’t meet what he really wanted. The cycle path was small, very small, but two studs wide, barely enough space for a cargo bike. The box art also depicted a bucket wagon parked in the middle of the cycle path. Nevertheless, he called it a “small win” and went back to work promoting his idea for a wider, smoother bike path.

He generated a new representation of his idea based on the new road plates. He also added some bicycle racks, a bicycle with a child seat and especially large, wide, blue bicycle paths. He chose blue as the color, knowing that it is the color used in Billund and Denmark, where Lego is located. Bicycle paths are painted red in his native Holland, to prevent people from mistaking them for the water in the canals.

Reluctantly, Steeman uploaded his new rendering to the Lego’s Ideas website, pending another rejection. But instead he got another big shock. “To my surprise, the idea was accepted within a day,” he said. It was published on the Lego website, and now Steeman can try to rally enough support to turn it into a real set.

Lego gave him 60 days to get 100 supporters; he did it in 4 hours. Now he has just over a year to get 10,000 supporters. The odds are against him – remember, only 33 ideas have ever been accepted – but he’s confident it can be done. And if he doesn’t, he knows the seed has already been planted with Lego designers. A thin blue cycle path can eventually grow into something much bigger and safer for the smiling residents of Legoland. Everything is possible.

“Ultimately, I just want a global generation to grow up with a sustainable, healthy, and most importantly, safe alternative to the automotive world we live in,” said Steeman. “And there is actually no bigger city on Earth to start that revolution than Lego City.”

He added, “So Lego was probably kind of right when they said it was a political statement.”