Referendum for a Car-Free Berlin: Too Radical or Not Radical Enough?

Aiming to reduce traffic in Berlin’s core to make for a more livable urban area, the Verkehrsentscheid referendum is an idea that socialists can get behind. Yet by focusing on the inner city, it may lack popular support from the city’s broader working class.

With traffic deaths in Berlin rising under right-wing mayor Kai Wegner, buses stuck in traffic, and hotter summers, reducing car traffic in Berlin’s core to create a much safer, quieter, cleaner, and cooler — in short, more livable — city is objectively necessary. The Verkehrsentscheid (transport referendum) wants to achieve this by reclassifying most roads inside the S-Bahn ring as “car-reduced”, meaning that private car usage would be restricted to 12 days a year per person. Public services, emergency responders, deliveries, professionals, taxis, and people with physical impairments would be exempted, allowing them to move through the city much faster than today. 

A court ruled in 2025 that the initiative was legally permissible — there is no constitutional right to cars. Now activists need to collect 174,000 signatures by May 8 to get a referendum. If there is a majority of “Ja” votes from at least a quarter of Berlin’s 2.5........

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