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2021 LEGO City Road Plates System Review – Part 3

There has been a lot of interest in the 2021 LEGO City sets, so let’s continue our discussion. If you haven’t been following this series, we talked about the #60304 LEGO City Road Plates starter set, and the #60290 LEGO City Skate Park in 2021 LEGO City Road Plates System Review – Part 1, and the #60291 LEGO City Family House in 2021 LEGO City Road Plates System Review – Part 2. Today, we will take a look at the #60306 LEGO City Shopping Street, and we will look at the final set, the #60292 LEGO City Town Center in a future article.

What ties together all these sets is the new road plates system. As we mentioned in Part 1 of this review series, the new road plates provide a modular system for building customized roads, and you can also use them in other applications where large building elements are needed. They come in 16×16 studs and 8×16 studs sizes, and are available in printed and unprinted versions. The top surface of the road plates is mostly smooth, but there are some strategically placed indentations with studs as connection points, and tubes on the bottom for further connections. We discussed the strengths of the new system, including its modularity and customization options, as well as its weaknesses like the flimsy connections between road plates, and the unsightly seams around the indentations (when filled with tiles).

Now, let’s talk about the #60306 LEGO City Shopping Street! This is one of the larger sets in the new collection, and besides incorporating several of the new road plates, it also features the new glow-in-the-dark streetlights, new bike colors, and it is the only new LEGO City set with a bike lane! According to the official description, the set features a bakery, a bike shop, an outdoor training area, three bikes (one cargo bike, one mountain bike, and one traditional bike), a sports car, and a service truck with a cherry picker, plus six minifigures. The set also includes one printed 8×16 road plate, two unprinted 16×16 road plates, and tiles to add a bike lane (we will talk about this in detail below). When built, the LEGO City Shopping Street measures over 5 in. (13 cm) high, 16 in. (40 cm) wide, and 11 in. (28 cm) deep. The total piece count is 533, and the price is $79.99. It will be available on January 1st at the LEGO City section of the Online LEGO Shop.

As this is a quite large set with many different components, it includes five building instructions. It would have been possible to combine them all into one booklet, but by having separate instructions, several kids can work on the set at the same time. The first instruction booklet features the yellow sports car, the second the street and the outdoor training area, the third the bakery, the fourth the bike shop, and the fifth the service truck. There is also a small sticker-sheet with fourteen stickers. They are mostly used for decorating the vehicles, but there are also a couple of stickers for the shop signs.

LEGO CITY SHOPPING STREET – THE SHOPS

Both the bakery and bike shop have simple but nicely detailed facades and very nice color-schemes. The bakery has a small sitting area at the front, and a cleverly designed bike stand using a couple of hoop pieces and standard clips. The shop sign and menu are both stickers, but the round tile coins are a new printed piece. As the building is only four studs deep, there is not much on the inside; a couple of breads, pretzels, a coffee machine (but not a single coffee cup!), and a cash register with a new print. For kids, this setup is enough for play, but adult will probably want to make this shop bigger.

The bike shop has a blue and dark-azure color scheme with a bit of snowy mountain display over the roof and a printed shop sign. It has more space inside than the bakery due to the rounded shop window with a turntable to display bikes. There is also a display rack with a couple of bike helmets (magenta and dark-azure). The register screen is a new printed piece. The most exciting feature of the bike shop is that we get three different bikes, all in new colors. The standard bike comes in magenta, the mountain bike in medium-azure (with yellow wheels), and the cargo bike in bright-light-orange. This will make LEGO City fans and LEGO bike collectors very happy.

The small training area on the left of the bakery is basically just an orange arch with a pull-up bar and a dip-bar and a small bench. It doesn’t really add much to the setup, but like the splash of color it adds to the street.

LEGO CITY SHOPPING STREET – THE VEHICLES

As we mentioned at the beginning, the set comes with two vehicles; a yellow sports car and a service truck with a cherry picker. Both vehicles have a nice design, and they look great with our without the stickers. Even though I’m happy with both vehicles, I find it strange that they were used in this set along with the new road plates. Both vehicles are six studs wide (and the wheel arches make them even wider), and they don’t fit very well on the narrow lanes of the new road plates. The four-stud wide pickup truck in the #60290 LEGO City Skate Park, and the four-stud wide family van in the #60291 LEGO City Family House are much better at demonstrating the new system. Even a combination of a four-stud wide vehicle and a six-stud wide service truck would have been better. The sports car looks enormous compared to the service truck as well as the road.

Also a hit and miss is the bike lane. This new system features dark-azure 2×6 tiles (you get four in the set) and 2×4 printed tiles (you get three). The bike lane looks very attractive when built, but it is too narrow. It can barely fit one bike, can’t fit the cargo bike, and there is no buffer zone between the bike lane and the narrow road with enormous cars zooming by. If you have more room in your layout, you can fix this issue by adding a solid one-stud wide white or yellow line between the road and the bike lane. Even with these issues and even if you don’t plan to use the new road tiles in your city, I do recommend the bike lane pieces. They really are pretty.

LEGO CITY SHOPPING STREET – THE ROAD PLATES

We talked about the road plates in detail in the previous reviews in this series, but there are some specific features in this set I wanted to mention. First of all, you get one printed 8×16 road plate, two 16×16 road plates, seven printed 2×4 tiles (with white line), 8 unprinted 2×4 tiles, and four yellow speed bumps. The road plates are connected to each other as well as to the shopping street with the tiles. As mentioned in the previous reviews, the connections are very flimsy, so make sure you build the set on a hard and flat surface otherwise you will get frustrated by the whole layout falling apart.

When you construct the road and you put the two vehicles on it, another issue becomes apparent. The vehicles aren’t just too wide for the road, they are also too wide for the speed bumps. Because the speed bumps are only four-stud wide, they can only slow down a four-stud wide vehicle. The service truck’s can completely avoid going over them, and the sports car gets scraped on the bottom. This makes me even more convinced that these vehicles are not a good fit for this set.

The street comes with a couple of the same streetlights with glow-in-the-dark elements as we have seen in the #60304 LEGO City Road Plates starter set. You also get two extra glow-in-the-dark 1×2 plates with the service truck, which is a nice touch. And you also get a printed street sign for the crosswalk.

In summary, there is a lot going for the #60306 LEGO City Shopping Street set; nice little shops that could be expanded or used as is, three different new bike colors, several of the new road plate elements, an exclusive bike lane, useful minifigs, and two vehicles that although don’t fit the set, they are still nice. As far as the price, $65-$70 would be more reasonable for what you get, but $80 is not totally outrageous (15 cents per piece). It just depends on how much you want it. If you are only interested in the road plates, the starter set is a better option. If you like the rest of what the shopping street has to offer, you might as well get that one. If you want to check out all the 2021 LEGO City sets, visit the LEGO City section of the Online LEGO Shop.

What do you think? How do you like the new LEGO City road plate system? Are you planning to give it a try? And how do you like the shopping street? Feel free to share your thoughts and discuss in the comment section below!

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More LEGO Ideas Projects Coming via BrickLink!

As you know, LEGO Ideas is a platform where LEGO fans can share their projects, and if they get 10,000 votes, LEGO will consider releasing them as official LEGO sets. However, since only a few projects get selected from each batch of submission, many fans and creators were left disappointed. This has been a pain point for the LEGO Ideas team for a long time and something they wanted to address.

As a first step, they are going to test a new pilot program where the LEGO Ideas team and the BrickLink team will collaborate to realize more of the 10K projects that weren’t selected to become official LEGO sets. This is super exciting news for both creators and those who voted for their projects. Below is the full announcement with more details.

Dear LEGO Ideas members,

As you know, LEGO Ideas has historically produced 4-5 new LEGO sets each year based on creative fan concepts that have reached the 10,000-supporter milestone. We love the fact that we are able to offer this opportunity to passionate LEGO fans around the world. However, we must acknowledge that many fan creators and the supporters of these projects have been left hoping their favorite contenders would be available to purchase.

Today we are excited to announce a pilot project in collaboration with the BrickLink Designer Program, through which we aim to realize more of these fan projects that have reached 10,000 supporters.

BRICKLINK DESIGNER PROGRAM

Back in 2018, BrickLink launched a pilot program with the LEGO Group to celebrate 60 years of the LEGO brick and help realize unique fan designs with original themes. Thirteen fan designs were successfully crowdfunded through the pilot, and we have received many questions about its potential its return since then. Would there be a second iteration? If so, when? You will not have to wait much longer because we can happily reveal that the Designer Program will make its return in 2021.

WHY A COLLABORATION WITH BRICKLINK?

For a long time, we have read feedback and experienced the disappointment from both fan creators and their project’s supporters. While we can only produce so many official LEGO Ideas, we longed to find an alternative way see more of these amazing fan designs come to life.

BrickLink’s successful AFOL Designer Program pilot indicated that there was an interest among fans to help bring fan creations to life in a different way; making them the perfect partner to test the desire for this among LEGO Ideas 10K Club creations and their supporters.

A recent survey of the BrickLink community also indicated their strong approval in seeing these 10K Club creations come to life through the Designer Program. See chart below with percentage of approval or disapproval of realizing LEGO Ideas projects not produced.

WHO WILL BE INVITED?

Select designers whose project(s) acquired 10,000 votes on LEGO Ideas, but were not approved for production, will be invited to participate in this Designer Program. That’s right, we’ll be digging into the LEGO Ideas archives for this pilot. Unfortunately, IP-based designs will not be eligible for the Designer Program, in addition to a few other projects that we know we unfortunately can’t realize. The LEGO Ideas team will first contact the designers from January, and then the BrickLink team will proceed with the onboarding process for participating designers.

WHAT WILL HAPPENS TO THE ORIGINAL AFOL DP?

The BrickLink team understands that there are some AFOL designers and fans who anticipated a new intake of original projects. The team’s intention is to host annual Designer Programs that best reflect voices of the AFOL communities. Depending on preferences, BrickLink may return to the original format of the open contest in 2022. But rest assured, that no matter how designs are submitted to the program, the goal is to continue to celebrate fan creativity by realizing your dream sets through crowdfunding.

WHEN CAN I GET MORE INFORMATION?

The official program title and detailed timeline have yet to be confirmed, but you can expect to get more information in early 2021. At the same time, we will also unveil all participating designers and their projects. We’re greatly looking forward to going on this (long-awaited) journey with you all. Stay tuned for more info.

I’m really looking forward to this program. What about you? Do you have any thoughts, questions, concerns, wishes, etc. about it? Which projects would you like to see offered via the BrickLink Designer Program? Feel free to share your thoughts and discuss in the comment section below. And for the currently available sets originally submitted by LEGO fans,  visit the LEGO Ideas section of the Online LEGO Shop.

And you might also like to check out the following related posts:

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