Status quo fans rejoice: nothing is changing in Berlin. Both the Berlin autofrei initiative, aimed at limiting private car journeys in the inner city, and the Volksbegehren Berlin werbefrei, wanting to end outdoor digital advertising, have failed to gather enough support to conduct a referendum in September. Cars will thus continue to occupy public space.
In another win for Berlin’s conservatives, Berlin autofrei missed the required benchmark by about 35,000 names; they managed to collect 140,000 of the required 175,000 signatures. Volksbegehren Berlin werbefrei only got 43,000 – a quarter of those needed.
Even so, the Berlin autofrei alliance managed to collect a whopping 33,000 signatures in the last week alone, when warm weather pulled many people out of their homes. It is thus possible that the colder temparatures in prior months, along with too few volunteers to collect signatures, were among the causes of the campaign’s failure.
Likely the biggest barrier, however, was outdated German bureaucracy and the inability to submit signatures online. As putting one’s name down on paper is legally required for all such initiatives, potential supporters who don’t happen to pass by collection spots at the right times never get a chance to make their voices heard.
