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Network Theory sitemap Please
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TOM-Comic: hopefully it is concrete ! carfree projects in Berlin: ... realisation politically hindered: Carfree
Quarter at the Panke (Autofreies Stadtviertel
an der Panke), Berlin-Mitte:
Eldenaer
Street / Old Slaughterhouse Area (Eldenaer
Straße / Alter Schlachthof),
carfree
plan: transport concept
Data
of Carfree households in Berlin:
2. Berlin`s Department of Statistical Data gives 44,8% carfree households for the year 1998 as the result of a large research of income & consumption in Berlin 3. other data from National Administration of Transportation says "~41%", but this national study based only on a little share of interviewed households from Berlin Please
note:
English
comments in german pages are marked. External links, photographs, image pics, plans & downloads open separate window. Most external links are not always tested, therefore all statements and links without warranty. |
carfree projects & initiatives in Berlin - overview - note: only .links
lead to english pages
realised
/ under construction in district:
Although nearly half of all households in Berlin live without an own car there still does not exist a carfree quarter for them ! But in this city of ~3,600,000 inhabitants are some carfree projects realised / under constructionIn district Treptow the small project Lebens(t)raum Johannisthal is realised, further parts are under construction and planned. The building site was formerly used as an airport, today it is in large parts a protected landscape area. A group of 15 private households built single houses with an ecological concept and some interesting common facilities. Further households are still welcome to participate in the 3rd part of the development. One criteria of the group for new participants is their carfreeness, but (unfortunately) not the most important one. Parking slots are positioned at the rim of the area, so the project can be typed as `car reduced´ or `optically carfree´. In Berlin all carfree household have financial advantages: The city`s building law code (§50 Bauordnung Berlin) allows to every owner of a site to decide by himself wether he wants to build parking places or not. So carfree households of that project can use the part of their claim (dedicated to parking) for their bicycles and do not need to seal it up for oil-leaking cars ... "Lebens(t)raum" is a beautifule German word mixture with "life" (Leben) and "dream" (Traum) and "room" (Raum). "Johannesthal" is the name of a part of the district Treptow (formerly East-Berlin). April
2007:
For this very small carfree development will be no parking places provided on the site, the place is better used for small gardens. Due to this and the renunciation of a large underground parking system it is possible for standard income households to get property, who usually weren`t able to buy in this part of the city. The next Metro station (U-8 Bernauer Straße, line in north-south direction) is only 300 meters (~330 yards) far away, and in 2006 there will connect a new tramway line outside the block in east-west direction through the inner city. A narrow path, only accessable for emergency cars and delivery transports, guides through the development and passes a small children playground - but of course, children can play everywhere, there is no danger of cars ... planned carfree projectsIn district Treptow the Berliner Bau- & Wohnungsgenossenschaft von 1892 eG plans ~50 carfree flats, as a little part of a large development, in seven houses with 3-4 stories, in a lovely environment and wonderful view into the landscape. This Gardencity Falkenberg (Gartenstadt Falkenberg) is a completion of the Tuschkastensiedlung(paintbox suburban colony), built in 1913/1914 by famous german architect Bruno Taut. Nearby are several bus lines and two local train stations (S-Bahn), so it takes ~30 minutes to the centre of Berlin. The 50 flats will be the fourth part of the whole development, and there is a real interest of the investor to realise them carfree. Politicians and the Berlin Building Law Code cannot stop him: He is the owner of the site, and the law allows him as much parking places as he needs (this §50 exists in this special way unfortunately only in Berlin), so zero of them is possible also. On the Tempelhof Field (Tempelhofer Feld) in district Tempelhof, the site of the current Tempelhof Airport, could be realised a carfree area. The government of Berlin wants to close this airport by the end of October 2008 because of the enlargement of the airport in Schoenefeld (BBI - Berlin Brandenburg International) up to main airport of Berlin. Though this seems to be a never ending story, the Berlin administration did some drafts of the future development of the site: They plan a great park area in the center, with conventional residential areas and zones for commerce and offices around. The part in the south-west area is well connected to public transportation, so it has good preliminary conditions to live carfree there. A carfree urban masterplan does not exist yet. We, the new formed "Working Group Carfree Living in Berlin", are engaged here. carfree potentials : search for new carfree sitesBecause of the foreseen prevention of the Carfree Quarter At The Panke the Working Group is in search for new potential carfree sites in the area of the inner city, inside the inner commuter rail circle. But the possible site needs to have some more special carfree conditions. The new Senator for Urban Development, Ms Junge-Reyer, offered us several sites in September 30, 2004. At the moment we proove them and develop first urban design concepts. We are planning to present several potential sites to those interested households, who registered for carfree living (> registration) in Berlin. With a larger event we hope to get an impression, which sites are prefered by the people. Then we will start the next steps ... hindered in 2003/6December 2006: For the realisation of the. .Carfree
Quarter At The Panke (Autofreies
Stadtviertel an der Panke) in central district
Mitte
showed several investors serious interest, saying: "We will only invest
in housing there, if it will be really carfree!". The site at Chausseestraße
is also called Area of the former Stadium Of The World Youth (Gelände
des ehemaligen Stadion der Weltjugend) and
located nearby the former Berlin Wall (city
map cutout). As early as July 2000 the district`s parliament voted
for the carfree idea (there was only one single vote against!), the district`s
government with its Mayor Mr. Zeller from CDU
(the conservative party) and the administration supported it also, but
the decision had to be done by the Berlin government, leaded by a SPD-PDS-coalition
(social-democratic party and former communists) as the owner of the site.
The site was obliged to be sold, and after some green applications in the
Berlin parliament (supported by PDS)
the SPD agreed
to a potential carfree development. In the first step of the procedure
to sell the site in 2001/2002 (Interessenbekundungsverfahren
= investors announce interest) our investors applied for it, but the second
and decisive step of this procedure (Bieterverfahren
= investors offer an obligatory price) did not follow for the next 19 months,
even though it was announced to follow soon.
Unfortunately, in October 2003 came up a new and very serious problem:
The BND (Germany`s
Federal Information Service) will move from Pullach near Munich to Berlin,
to be closer to the Project
description (situation before October 2003):
The carfree urban masterplan contains
The carfree idea is to create a calm and green borough of short ways, sure
for children, taking pleasure in meeting and talking on the street ...
more hindered attempts of carfree projects in Berlin in the 90`sFrom the beginning up to the middle of the 90ties have been several attempts for carfree quarters with some political interest in the beginning. The government of Berlin let make a big study about the preliminary conditions of several sites, and the result was the extraction of six proposials: The site of Falkenberg, the Tempelhof Field (for both see short description above), and the following four projects. The site in Mitte at Chausseestraße (see above) was not considered, because there had been other plans in this time for it - the politicians were sure to get the Olympic Games 2000 and wanted to use it for sports facilities only. Instead of a provably wrong myth ("there are no investors for carfree housing") these attempts have been stopped for political reasons by Berlin`s former vice-minister for traffic (member of christ-democratic party CDU), see public press report in "Berliner Zeitung", September 30, 1997. After this assignment to his administration any investors who were interested at this time drawed away, and others could not be found no more ... For the plenty of inquiries for the current development of these projects ("will it be carfree and when will it be ready?") here are their stories, all descriptions in german only: -
Berlin-Prenzlauer
Berg:
-
Berlin-Steglitz:
-
Berlin-Friedrichshain/-Lichtenberg:
-
Berlin-Marzahn:
Today Biesdorf-Süd has been realised in a conventional way, others don`t go on (Lichterfelde Süd) or the development is very slowly and troublesome (Eldenaer Straße / Alter Schlachthof). The worst case is Stralauer Halbinsel / Rummelsburger Bucht: There can be seen the failed attempt of "car-reduced" housing. Car-reduced means there: They built less parking places than usual, but the urban design looks conventional, so the car-possessing people do not find enough parking places, and the carfree households do not find a reason to move there! The experience is: Be careful with compromises, at the end nobody is happy with them ! other examples of good practice:In several districts are .optically
carfree quarters, where parking and traffic is not allowed inside (with
exceptions for the usual special cases like emergency or deliveries of
goods). Private parking is only possible at the rim and / or underground.
They provide a usual number of parking places. Some of those examples are:
- in district Steglitz: Woltmannweg Suburban Colony - in district Zehlendorf: Eco Suburban Colony Berliner Str. /Colmarer Weg - in district Kreuzberg: Riemann`s Courtyard Garden - in district Neukölln: Grauwackeweg Suburban Colony with Hofje-Project - in district Treptow: Projekt Residing At The Orchard Beside them there are a few more "conventional" (not carfree) eco-housing projects and suburban colonies. pedestrian zones, areas, places & streets closed for cars in several districts of BerlinThere exist several pedestrian zones in Berlin, where pedestrians and flaneurs enjoy the peaceful atmosphere in the public street space and the possibilty of communication, not disturbed by traffic noise and waste gases: In the districts Charlottenburg, Mitte, Schöneberg, Spandau, Tegel, Marzahn and Wedding. New are the re-designed Pariser Platz (October 2002) in Mitte, German`s first "Youth Street" (Jugendstraße) in Neukölln (Rütlistraße, April 2003), and parts of the historic city center of Köpenick (May 2004). There are more discussions and initiatives for new pedestrian zones in Friedrichshain (April 2005), Charlottenburg, Wilmersdorf and Steglitz. At Hackescher Markt in Mitte`s neighbourhood area Spandauer Vorstadt was a new pedestrian zone in discussion, but first there will be introduced a softer type of traffic reduction only, a so called "traffic calmed commercial area" ("verkehrsberuhigter Geschäftsbereich") with max. speed 10 km/h, which will be a new traffic-concept for Berlin. Probably most important for Berlin would be to the initiatives in district Tiergarten: The close-down of the large highways through Kulturforum with Mies` famous National Gallery and Scharoun`s unique Philharmonia. Same importance refers to Großer Tiergarten, Berlin`s Central Park, where you cannot find a silent place due to several highways cutting this large area in the middle ... Should Berlin adopt London`s succesful congestion charge (cc) ?Yes, the London example was succesful, and other cities` experiences confirm that, too. The best solution for Berlin would be the combination of (1) the cc with (2) the implementation of the "environmental zone" (Umweltzone) and (3) the enlargement of the existing controlled parking zones (Parkraumbewirtschaftung - PRB) in the area of the railway circle around the inner city (innerer S-Bahn-Ring). In Berlin, since March 2005 the discussion about the cc (City Maut) has been started. The result is now the decision to create the "environmental zone" since Aug. 01, 2008 in the inner city area. Additional some inner city districts enlarge their controlled parking zones. But still the local politicians refuse to implement the cc. April 20, 2007, Der Tagesspiegel: Im Sommer wird das Parken in Mitte deutlich teurer | Rund um den Gendarmenmarkt sind ab August drei Euro pro Stunde fällig | Im nächsten Jahr sollen außerdem drei weitere Zonen eingerichtet werden (newspaper report about the enlargement of some controlled parking zones, and higher tariffs in the existing ones) March 27, 2007, Senate of Berlin (DS 16/0402):Stand der Umsetzung der Umweltzone und Anpassung des Luftreinhalte- und Aktionsplans für Berlin 2005 bis 2010 an die 35. BImSchV (PDF, ~ 330 kb; official report about the current activities about the preparation for the implementation of the environmental zone) the others: London:
Ken Livingston`s congestion charge:
New
York: Michael Bloomberg`s new PLANYC which contains the
congestion
charge:
contact
autofrei wohnen
URL
of this page: http://www.autofrei-wohnen.de/projectsberlin.html
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May
07, 2008
diese Seite auf deutsch . . News: 28.04.2005:
24.04.2005:
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