Where are the Bike Lanes In Lego City?
The War on Cars
The War on Cars, LLC
4.9 • 937 Ratings
🗓️ 7 June 2021
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Why are there no bike lanes in LEGO City? That's a question Marcel Steeman, a regional councillor in the Netherlands, asked himself one day in 2016 while assembling some LEGO sets with his kids. As a Dutchman, he thought the lack of bike lanes on LEGO's thin plastic road plates was weird. Even weirder, The LEGO Group is based in Denmark, one of the most bike-friendly nations on the planet! How could a Danish company not include bike lanes in its city-themed sets?
When Marcel submitted a proposal for new road plates with bike lanes to the company, LEGO rejected the idea, telling him the idea was too political. What's political about bike lanes? As anyone who's tried to change a street in a real city can tell you, the answer is everything.
What happens when one of the best selling toys in history doesn't offer children the tools to build a world where it's possible to get around without a car? And why does it matter to a bunch of adults?
***This episode was sponsored in part by our friends at Cleverhood. For 20% off of stylish, functional rain gear designed specifically for walking and biking enter coupon code WARONCARS at checkout.***
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SHOW NOTES:
Read friend-of-the-podcast Andrew J. Hawkins at the Verge, who's been covering the quest to bring bike lanes to LEGO City.
Check out Marcel Steeman's bike lane design at LEGO Ideas. And here's Marco te Brömmelstroet, the Cycling Professor, asking why LEGO City is so "car centric" back in 2019.
Sean Kenney creates amazing sculptures and art with LEGO bricks. Pick up a copy of his book, Cool City, so you can learn to build your own LEGO cities for people, bikes and transit.
Learn more about the New England Lego Users Group.
Read Thalia Verkade at The Correspondent. (In Dutch.)
Get official War on Cars merch at our store.
Check out The War on Cars library at Bookshop.org.
This episode was produced, recorded and edited by Doug Gordon. Music is by Stationary Sign and National Anthem Worx, courtesy of Epidemic Sound. The War on Cars theme is by Nathaniel Goodyear. Our logo is by Dani Finkel of Crucial D.
Find us on Twitter: @TheWarOnCars, Doug Gordon @BrooklynSpoke, Sarah Goodyear @buttermilk1, Aaron Naparstek @Naparstek.
Questions, comments or suggestions? Email us: thewaroncars@gmail.com
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What do you like about playing with LEGO? |
| 0:07.0 | That you can do whatever you want and you can, like whatever comes to mind you can do whatever you want and you can like whatever comes to mind you can make. |
| 0:19.3 | So what are you building? |
| 0:21.2 | I'm building a boat that can go on water and that can also go on snow. Some with two pieces and some with four pieces. |
| 0:35.0 | Four pieces. |
| 0:36.0 | I kind of just like that you can build whatever you want to build or um I just kind of |
| 0:50.4 | like to build like whatever comes to my mind. |
| 0:54.0 | Hello. Hello, I'm Doug Gordon, and welcome to the War on Cars. |
| 1:07.0 | Those voices you heard at the top? |
| 1:10.0 | Those were my kids. |
| 1:12.0 | My son is eight years old, my daughter is 11, and both of them are in that |
| 1:16.6 | sweet spot for playing with LEGO. Toys, especially creative construction-based toys like |
| 1:22.3 | LEGO, are a kind of mirror of the world around our kids. |
| 1:26.0 | They help shape the way they see and understand their environment. |
| 1:30.0 | And they enable kids to build imaginary places of their own. In fact, those kids sitting on the floor |
| 1:36.1 | sifting through a bin full of LEGO bricks, while someday they might be in charge of planning, |
| 1:41.5 | designing, or even running a city. So what happens when one of the |
| 1:45.8 | best-selling toys in modern culture doesn't offer children and some very passionate adults, |
| 1:51.6 | an easy way to build a world where it's possible to get around |
| 1:55.1 | without a car. |
| 1:56.1 | Well, that's what we're going to find out. In 2016, Marcel Stamon, a regional counselor in the Netherlands, was playing with its kids, |
| 2:17.6 | assembling some LEGO sets his four-year-old had received as birthday gifts. One of the gifts was a train station, complete with all the things |
... |
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