Berlin – It’s a sunny afternoon and Lausitzer Platz across from Görlitzer Park in Kreuzberg looks idyllic. Children line up at an ice cream parlor, mothers ride cargo bikes past the play street. Claus Fleischhauer is right in the middle and says: “The Greens have turned Lausitzer Platz into a restricted area – and into a fairground.” At least from the point of view of residents and drivers.
The product designer speaks for the citizens’ initiative “Lausizulaut”, which writes to the media with the slogan “I used to vote green”. In their email, they call the Greens a “detached and self-absorbed ‘people’s party’ that makes decisions in grand style without even allowing any criticism to be heard”. What’s going on in the otherwise green Kreuzberg?
In Bergmannstraße there was also anger about a “protected two-way cycle path” that not everyone liked. In Krautstrasse in Friedrichshain, residents successfully sued a pop-up pedestrian zone. And that in a district in which the Greens have been the strongest parliamentary group since 2006.
Outwardly, Fleischhauer doesn’t look like a conservative, he wears a Pink Floyd T-shirt and a steel necklace like a punk, plus round glasses and Bavarian leather pants. The 54-year-old runs a shop around the corner that he has to supply. “You simply created facts here,” he says, pointing to stone bollards and planters on the floor. “I imagine grassroots democracy to be different.”
Kiezblocks are emerging all over the city
There are so-called Kiezblocks, as they are in more and more districts, at the request of residents or the district. Pillars, bollards and buckets block the passage of cars, only let pedestrians and bicycles through.
The district office at Lausitzer Platz already started this in November 2020 and expanded the car-free zone in June 2021. District Mayor Monika Hermann (Greens) said that Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg wanted to show what the city of tomorrow would look like. The open space should be available to all citizens, not just the cars. That in turn annoys those who want to park here.
Sabine Gudath
Lausitzer Platz in Kreuzberg has recently become a pedestrian zone, even cyclists are only guests there.
According to their own statements, 30 affected residents are active in the “Lausizulaut” initiative. You have already submitted over 130 objections to the district office against the closure of the square, which lost 120 parking spaces. Delivery times for traders are provided on weekdays. But he also has to load goods at other times, says Fleischhauer, just like local musicians or filmmakers their equipment.
In Kreuzberg, he always appreciated the coexistence and coexistence of different life plans, says Fleischhauer, and now, like many craftsmen, he is considering moving from the city to Brandenburg. “The Greens do not save the world climate with the pedestrian zone, but they poison the climate in the neighborhood,” says Fleischhauer, who complains that the District Council (BVV) does not even listen to his initiative.
Controversial survey, one-liner from the district office
“If there was a clear majority in favor, I would accept it, but I don’t see it,” he says. The district office always refers to a resident survey, according to which two thirds of the residents no longer want private parking spaces and over 50 percent are in favor of blocking neighborhoods to private cars. “But who took part and whether the survey is independent remains unclear,” says Fleischhauer.
Does the district office listen to the opponents’ concerns? When asked how the procedure went, the press office replied with the one-liner “Your questions will be answered by the FAQ on Lausitzer Platz” and a link to an official website. Doesn’t sound like an explanatory and charm offensive.
There are big questions that are being negotiated here on a small scale. On the one hand: If a traffic turnaround is not even possible in the alternative Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, where then? On the other hand: Even if only a minority is really against the car exclusion – how do you deal fairly with them?
It’s also a question of style
Other parties are now courting the group. Kurt Wansner (CDU) met the initiative twice. In June, the Greens and the SPD rejected a new procedure for local residents to participate in the BVV against the votes of the CDU, FDP, the Left and the AfD. The district’s FAQ page announces that citizens will participate in the redesign “for autumn”, but it is all about how, not whether.
Even if you are basically in favor of less car traffic and more pedestrian and bicycle traffic, there is also a question of style: Do you discuss with the other side or do you ignore them because you see yourself in the right?
“Paris has created 200 new pedestrian zones,” says Jonas Lähnemann from the “SpielAufmLausi” initiative, which campaigned for Spielstraße am Platz. He doesn’t think that all citizens were asked there beforehand.
But you can also do good and still advertise for it. Nina Noblé from the “Berlin car-free” referendum says: “There will always be people against it, never everyone will be satisfied.” But how do you communicate with them?
In the end, the Greens Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg responded to the request: parliamentary group spokeswoman Annika Gerold referred in a bureaucratic statement to the FAQ, a BVV decision and the survey in which 1,500 households took part. The “Lausizulaut” initiative is probably not one of them.
.