In 2019, the very heart of Berlin will go car-free. Following a decision Saturday, Berlin’s Unter den Linden avenue will soon be off limits to all private cars, allowing only buses, taxis, and bikes to ride along its mile’s length.
It’s hard to overstate the symbolic significance of the move. Unter den Linden is the most famous street in Germany, a kind of Teutonic Champs Elysées that contains museums, libraries, monuments, a university, and two opera houses. The East Berlin avenue, whose name means “under/among the linden trees”, used to function as an east-west highway through the city’s heart and was the focus for military parades from the era of Napoleon to that of Gorbachev. Banishing cars from such a central space won’t just remove private motorists from the city’s tourist heart, it suggests a change of heart that could steadily see such traffic increasingly sidelined. [...]
For some, however, it doesn’t go far enough. A writer for the Berliner Zeitung has damned the plan as half-hearted, saying that the city is losing a roadway without actually gaining a new pedestrian zone. Tourist buses and taxis will still prowl the street, while surrounding alternative roads could become even more crowded. This argument seems a little defeatist, but there is a good point lurking in there. If it is going to become a true pleasure, Unter den Linden will need more than a car ban.
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