Constitutional Court allows referendum: Will Berlin become car-free?

Constitutional Court allows referendum: Will Berlin become car-free?

A groundbreaking step for transport policy in the capital: The Berlin Constitutional Court has declared the referendum “Berlin car-free” to be permissible. The court decided that the initiative can continue to pursue its proposed law, which has given many transport activists a sigh of relief. This ruling could have lasting changes in Berlin in the coming years. The initiative wants to largely ban private car traffic within the S-Bahn ring, and residents are only allowed to use their cars on a maximum of twelve days per year, which is known as the slot rule. Tagesspiegel reports that the Senate considered this project to be constitutionally questionable.

The court president Ludgera Selting emphasized that in its decision the court did not decide on the question of whether Berlin will really become car-free, but only on the admissibility of the multi-stage process for citizen participation. What is interesting is that the judges did not see any disproportionate restrictions on civil rights and therefore did not consider the rights of citizens to be at risk in the context of traffic design. After all, the use of public roads is not an absolute right. A vote on the referendum could be coming soon, because in order to take the next step, the initiative must collect at least 170,000 signatures within four months. A successful referendum would then result in a referendum in which a majority of votes and a quarter of all eligible voters must agree. Mirror added that the initiative had already collected over 50,000 signatures in the summer of 2021 to get the process started.

The concerns and opportunities

But the project also poses challenges: although judges pointed out that the regulation pursues high-level public welfare goals, they expressed concerns that its implementation could lead to bottlenecks in local public transport. The Berlin Senate argued that the law encroaches on federal competence in road traffic law and therefore potentially violates the Basic Law. However, these objections were not enough for the court to stop the referendum. RBB24 reports that the hearing lasted almost four hours in total and around 80 listeners were present.

The Constitutional Court made it clear that the draft law, which is to be implemented in a transitional phase of four years, at least provides for some exceptions for people with disabilities, emergency services and certain commercial traffic. This could be an important element in allaying concerns from critics. The dialogue about the use of public space in the capital is being conducted more intensively than ever. The coming months could be crucial for Berlin's transport policy.