Allthough Lego introduced interesting green 32x32 road junction baseplates without lane markings in the early 70s already, these 1978 baseplates were certainly a big revolution. They offer great playability with 9 studs wide sidewalks (which was shortened to 7 after 1986 and is nowadays only 6!). They were designed, however, for 4-studs wide vehicles only.

I would like to point out that since 1980 this baseplate got modified, without changing the part number. The pedestrian crossing was simply removed, which significantly helped to remove the Xing clutter problem mentioned in the previous review. So this interesting set can be collected in two flavors.

When this was released it was an amazing development in Legoland. No more random buildings scattered across the bedroom floor. Lego had roads before, but not roads you could build on! There's not much to say about these, except why are the gutters green? (maybe that's how they were in Denmark at the time). Also, anybody who had a number of these roads would have noticed the incredible number of pedestrian crossings in the town, sometimes right next to each other. No wonder there were always traffic jams.

Pros

• Pro 1 If you only have one road, make it this one.
• Pro 2 No potholes.
• …

Cons

• Con 1 Building experience is non-existent. And really, how could it be anything else?
• Con 2 Lego never made a cul-de-sac road so you would end up with roads that just ended abruptly. Very minor quibble but I had two cons to fill here.
• …

In conclusion, this is a straight road.