'The car belongs in Berlin' Critics say city is back-pedalling on bike-friendly policies

Amid the rubble left by the second world war, Berlin seized an opportunity to remake itself with a bold new vision of mobility, its citizens zooming down broad avenues and autobahns in roaring German-engineered cars.

- Deborah Cole

Tramlines, particularly in the capitalist west of the divided city, were ripped out to make way for motorists, and bicycles were muscled out of the main traffic arteries. The autogerechte Stadt (car-friendly city) was born.

Fast forward 80 years and the dream of carefree individualised transport has regained a stronghold in the German capital. In fact, as cities such as Paris, Amsterdam and Copenhagen increasingly embrace policies that are friendly to bicycles, pedestrians and the planet, critics say Berlin is zooming full-throttle in reverse.

"It's not an unreasonable demand that Berlin ... actively ensures that everyone who is not surrounded by a tonne of metal feels safe in public spaces," Julia Schmitz, a community affairs reporter, wrote recently in the newspaper Tagesspiegel.

Experts note that although Berlin does have a low ratio of cars to people, its extensive public transport network is woefully underfunded and its bicycle lanes, which 15 years ago were seen as cutting edge in Europe, are often chaotic.

But striking the right balance of interests on Berlin's roads has proved divisive since the pandemic and has hammered a deep wedge through the city's ruling coalition, the same fractious alliance of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the centre-left Social Democratic party (SPD) that governs at national level.

The CDU built its win in the last state election in 2023 in part on a backlash against the car-critical policies of the previous government of the SPD, the Greens and the far-left Die Linke. Aspects of the debate have taken on the flavour of a culture war, with the far-right Alternative für Deutschland also campaigning on motorists' rights.