“Free spaces instead of sheet metal desert”: About 200 people demonstrated to reduce car traffic – Berlin

Around 200 people demonstrated in Berlin on Saturday to reduce car traffic – and called for a change of traffic. The protest march was organized Greenpeace and the “Volkswagen Free Berlin of Cars” initiative – with the slogan “Empty spaces instead of a tinplate desert”, participants walked through Kreuzberg and Mitte in the afternoon.

The word “waste” was often heard on a demo. Waste means: the car eats up eight square meters of highway space and gets around uselessly for 23 hours a day – and it’s often free. The initiative says the space can be used much better for cafes, green spaces, safe bike paths and pedestrians.

To show how much space the car takes up, activists have made so-called walking tools out of a car-sized plank. Thus a few hundred in a good mood caused a “traffic jam” on the way from Mitte to Kreuzberg.

In a referendum, the movement of private cars within the S-Bahn ring will be banned, with the exception of motorways and federal highways, in principle, according to Target Referendum. Driving your vehicle should only be possible in exceptional cases. It is said that the place in the city belongs to the people, not to cars.

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At least 20,000 signatures will be collected by June for the referendum to begin. Berliners can vote in 2023.