Wednesday 27, September
“Stop Project Graefekiez”: Pro-car graffiti in Kreuzberg
It started this spring. In place of parking spots for cars, the district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg began to install green spaces, bicycle racks and seating areas as a trial “model-project” in Graefekiez. But now angry graffiti has appeared on almost all of the new benches and flower boxes. Slogans such as “Fuck Red-Green”, “No parking ban in the neighbourhood” and “Stop Project Graefekiez” were all written in what appears to be the hand of single person.
This is not the first time the project has taken some heat politically. In June of last year, the CDU supported an initiative which collected 1,400 signatures from local residents against the project – which led the district to scale back their initial plans to remove more than 2,000 parking spaces for cars in the neighbourhood.
Only about 100 parking spaces have been removed so far, with stations for shared vehicles like cars, cargo bikes and electric scooters taking their place. The pedestrianisation project is scheduled to continue until spring of next year, at which point the district council will decide whether or not to proceed with it.
