LEGO traffic lights: red, amber or green for your city junction

Red and amber, the second before green. Someone got there first.

Most LEGO traffic lights on a city layout show all three lamps lit at once. Stack a red, a yellow and a green round plate on a post and that is what you get. It reads as a traffic light, but it never reads as a moment, because a real signal only ever shows one state, and that state tells you what is about to happen.

So the question for your junction is not how to build a traffic light. It is which second of the day you want to freeze.

Pick the moment

Red: the bus has stopped, someone is halfway across, a cyclist waits at the line. Green: the street is moving, so angle a car into the turn. Amber is the tense one, where somebody is deciding whether to go.

Then there is red and amber together, the most British moment on the road. It only happens on UK lights, in the second before green, and anyone who has sat at one will recognise it straight away. American lights skip it and go from red straight to green.

Give the junction some logic

One lonely pole looks like a prop. Put a light facing each approach, at the stop line, and mix the states: red one way, green the other. Suddenly the scene has traffic rules, and the cars you park make sense. Add a pedestrian crossing warning on the approach and the street starts to explain itself.

Why our lamps are never black

Our signal heads are drawn for a 1×2 tile, portrait way up, so they sit neatly on a slim post or the face of a brick. The unlit lamps are not black. Each keeps a dim red, amber or green lens, so you can still see all three positions, exactly as you can on a real signal in daylight. There are five to choose from: red, red and amber, amber, green, and all lit.

Get them ready on a tile

The Build Your Own Sign Pack lets you pick the exact states you want in a few seconds, from our 82 UK road signs. We apply each one to a genuine LEGO tile in white, light grey, dark grey or black, so they arrive ready to place. A crossroads needs four lamp tiles, two red and two green, and a pack of 6 still leaves room for a crossing warning and a No Entry.

Or keep the whole set

If you would rather have every option, the Road & Traffic Signs UK Edition sheet carries all five signal heads among its 84 designs, for you to cut out yourself. The USA Edition includes a signal head alongside its New York and San Francisco street signs. For the rest of the junction, see our guide to signs that sell the scene.