Berliners rave against the motorway as extension threatens 20 cultural venues
Clubbers hold street party protesting against plan to flatten 20 venues in path of ring road extension
WTF? I thought Germany was better than this. Haven't they been to nearly any US city to see just how shitty adding cars makes them? Please don't do this to Berlin!
Rising rates of car ownership doesn't mean you need more roads. That's just a suckers game that begets more roads and more cars while slowly choking the life out of your city.
Take that money and finish the airport, add another UBahn line, and increase SBahn frequency outside the ring. Also keep adding more bike roads. I was astonished at how many more people were biking around Berlin when I visited this year compared to my last visit. Whole roads had been slimmed down and the feeling of having more people oriented neighborhoods was palpable. It was phenomenal and encouraging. Adding a six lane monstrosity at the cost of whole cultural centers would be stabbing Berlin in the guts to appease noisy, stinky, inefficient, climate destroying vehicles.
Don't be like the US, Berlin. You're better than that!
After the last election the Berlin state government changed from left to more right leaning. The conservative CDU is now part of the coalition. I'm not sure if this decision was made before the switch, but the new government already halted the opening of new bike paths that have already been build, because the area is currently used as parking spots. Really annoying and backwards.
Everyone, repeat after me: Elections have consequences.
Yeah, I hear ya. Every time a right leaning government is put into power society backslides. Your vote matters.
If you love driving. The feeling of an open road in front of you. You shouldn’t be hoping for more roads, but less people on the road. Support people who don’t want to drive will benefit those who do.
Support good and free public transport. Pay for it with your taxes, motorists, and you will save yourself idiots on the road, who don't want nor know how to drive, but have to because it's the only way.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
With the permission of Berlin authorities, local night-clubs blocked the busy road throughout Saturday afternoon and evening, pumping out music from impromptu stages.
The six-lane motorway would destroy some of Berlin's edgiest night-clubs including About Blank, Wilde Renate, Else, Oxi, Void and Club Ost.
Germany's transport minister Volker Wissing and Berlin's mayor Kai Wegner want to extend the motorway to deal with the city's growing population and a rising rate of car ownership.
The Autobahn was part of West Germany's utopian post-war ideology of a modern capitalist metropolis: the car would be king and concrete highways would smooth over the scars of a city traumatised by war.
Greens and left-wingers say this undermines climate change goals and that Berlin is out of step with other western cities, which are trying to limit not encourage car use.
"This battle represents the tensions in the city and within German politics," says Elisabeth Steffen, spokesperson for About Blank, one of the clubs threatened by the motorway.
The original article contains 733 words, the summary contains 163 words. Saved 78%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Good luck to them. I've only visited Berlin once, but it seemed like such a fantastic city. I can't fathom why you would want to dump a motorway on top of that.
Just a reminder; the solution to traffic is almost never more roads.
Exactly. fewer people is the solution!
Well we know protesting doesn't work, so I'm interested to see how raving goes.