IMAGO / Funke Foto Services
Thursday, January 29
Since summer 2025, the Rue Jardin in the 13th Arrondissement in Paris has offered a park-like pathway to pedestrians and cyclists, lined with perennials and woodland plants. Inspired by this Parisian model, Berlin will also gain its first Gartenstraße by replacing the ballads on Danneckerstraße with a greener approach to pedestrianisation.
When Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg’s district mayor Clara Herrmann (Greens) visited the French capital last October, the Rue Jardin left a mark. “We were very impressed by the Gartenstraße,” she stated.
Therefore, plans have been established and €1.6 million set aside to transform Danneckerstraße in Friedrichshain’s Rudolfkiez. The road between Rudolfstraße and Rotherstraße it is to be deconstructed and re-planted.
This section of Rudolfplatz has already been a pedestrian zone since 2020, hosting trees and shrubs in tubs – an area the district calls Klimastraße. However, the new plans signal a far more radical ecological urban conversion.
Not everyone agrees with the proposal. CDU district councilor Marita Fabeck has stated that, “Paris is often staged by the Greens as a great role model for a car-free city and it is strongly romanticized in the process. However, a short reality check is enough to ground this myth: Berlin is about 8.5 times larger than Paris in terms of area, and has different traffic flows.”
She also says that the city should invest in existing green spaces rather than creating new ones, claiming that “I can’t think of a park in the area that isn’t in a neglected and littered state.”
However, with Mayor Herrmann currently showing climate projects in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg to employees of the Paris city administration, including the traffic-calmed Bergmannstraße and Lausitzer Platz, Berlin’s green initiatives might not be so far behind the French capital after all.
Comments are closed.