It is one of the most popular and luxurious shopping streets in Berlin. Starting next Monday, a section of about 500 meters of Friedrichstrasse, between Leipziger Strasse and Französischer Strasse, will remain indefinitely closed to traffic cars and motorcycles. The measure is part of a concept devised for the center of the German capital: the tripartite of social democrats, greens and post-communists that governs Berlin wants get “traffic reduction” in the Mitte district.
“The pedestrian zone creates a public space that is no longer dedicated to road traffic, but to pedestrians. In Berlin, most travel is done on foot, often through spaces that are too narrow. The same happens in Friedrichstrasse ”, argues the Berlin Senate. His goal is to create a city with “better air quality, less noise, more chance to sit in a green environment and thus create an attractive framework for the merchants of the city”.
The final decision was preceded by a trial period. That section of Friedrichstrasse was already closed to motor traffic between August 2020 and October 2021, in full restrictions on public life due to the pandemic. Despite the fact that the experiment was to end in the fall of 2021, the senator for mobility, the green Bettina Jarasch, decided to maintain the measure.
Merchant Complaints
Until the wine seller Anja Schröder, with a business on the parallel street of Charlottenstrasse, filed a lawsuit in court. Her store has a terrace where you can try the product. According to her, the closure of Friedrichstrasse doubled the traffic on the street where your business is, which generated a direct impact on its clientele. “I opened my business in a quiet street. Now the street is crowded,” the shopkeeper told the Bild Zeitung tabloid in October last year.
The justice saw a lack of legal basis for the measure and ended up agreeing with the wine merchant, with which the Government of Berlin had to put an end to what at first was just an experiment. Senator Jarasch took care of approving the necessary legislation for this and from the end of this January, that half kilometer of Friedrichstraße will once again be pedestrianized. Trade associations criticize the measure for considering it “unilateral” and “not negotiated”and because it will make the tasks of suppliers that supply shops, restaurants and hotels in the area more difficult.
Senator Jarasch responds that she will have the opinion of merchants and citizens for the definitive urban design of the public space, which will foreseeably include garden areas and large benches to spend “quality” time outdoors, as shown by the virtual designs published by the Senate.
electoral background
The speed with which the measure has been introduced and communicated suggests certain electoral intentions. The German capital will repeat regional and local elections on February 12. The elections already took place on September 26 of last year, coinciding with the federal elections throughout the country. But a series of irregularities – such as the lack of ballots and the closing of some polling stations later than the legal time – led the court to issue a repetition. The chaotic nature of the German capital once again generated headlines and embarrassment inside and outside the country. The mess did not generate, by the way, not a single political resignation.
The current senator for mobility, Bettina Jarasch, is the head of the Berlin Greens list. With her in front of her, the ecoliberals aspire to be second force behind the CDU Christian Democrats and ahead of the SPD Social Democrats. The Greens could thus lead the next Berlin government, which will necessarily have to be a coalition.
The Social Democrat Franziska Giffey, current mayor of Berlin, has not been slow to criticize the closure of Friedrichstraße to traffic despite being a measure taken by a senator from her current government. “It is not that I am in favor of the use of the car, but that we cannot close the street to think later what to do with it”, argues Giffey.
Based on the administrative plans, the urban design of the pedestrian section of Friedrichstraße will be effectively completed during the next legislature. This means that, depending on the colors of the future government that comes out of the polls, the closure could be reversed and cars circulate again on Friedrichstraße. A presenter from the local radio station Radio 1 recently summed up the situation sarcastically: “Berlin’s main problem… is still Berlin”.