The Graefekiez is an inner-city neighbourhood of pre-war residential buildings in Berlin's Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district, with a population density of approximately 30,000 residents per km². Despite this density, car ownership is low: only 182 cars per 1,000 residents, compared to a Berlin-wide average of 335. Also, car use is very low. In the district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg only 8.4 % of resident trips are made by car.

Since the 1980s, the area has been formally designated a “traffic-calmed zone”. In practice, however, the street layout remained conventionally divided into pavements, parking strips and carriageways, without the physical redesign required by the administrative regulations. This "built contradiction" created ambiguous and dangerous conditions.

A traffic count carried out in Böckhstraße on 15 December 2022 found that fewer than 10% of vehicle drivers observed the legally required walking pace (7 km/h); on average, speeds exceeded this limit by three to four times. Parked vehicles severely restricted sightlines and movement space for pedestrians and cyclists, particularly dangerous for school children attending the four schools located within the neighbourhood.

The district assembly commissioned the district authority, on the initiative of B'90 Die Grünen/SPD, to pursue the following main objectives:

• Improving road safety for schoolchildren (particularly at Lemgo Primary School, Böckhstraße)
• Strengthening climate resilience through de-sealing and green infrastructure (sponge city approach)
• Establishing loading and delivery zones for commercial traffic
• Expanding shared mobility (bicycles, cargo bikes, car-sharing via Jelbi)
• Improving the quality and liveability of public space

Political starting point

A planning motion submitted to the district assembly in April 2022 and adopted with amendments in June 2022. It tasked the district authority with carrying out a scientifically monitored field experiment in cooperation with the WZB. After thorough legal and technical review the project was extensively modified and launched with a smaller scope on 14 March 2023 under the motto "Step by Step, More Space".

Legal review and revised approach

The original concept envisaged converting approximately 600 car parking spaces across the entire neighbourhood. Following a legal opinion commissioned by the WZB, it became clear that a district-wide traffic experiment would only be legally permissible where a specific and demonstrable hazard could be established — which could not be done for the Graefekiez as a whole. The concept was therefore revised into a two-stage approach.

Stage 1: Core area (Böckhstraße / Graefestraße)

In the summer of 2023, the following measures were implemented in the core area:

• De-sealing of car parking spaces for planting by local residents (soil replacement to a depth of 30 cm was required due to ground contamination; construction was delayed by approximately four weeks as a result)
• De-sealing of parking spaces to create a gravel surface for recreational use
• Installation of parklets (neighbourhood terraces, an outdoor classroom) by the "Zukunft Straße" project, developed in co-creation with local schools and nurseries
• Designation of activity spaces for special-use permits
• Establishment of an "Open Table" in Graefestraße as a demonstration use
• Installation of 13 Jelbi points and 5 Jelbi stations (BVG) across the neighbourhood, reachable within 100–200 m; residents received a €20 voucher by post upon launch
• New bicycle parking facilities
• Establishment of loading and delivery zones at 8 locations with a 30-minute disc parking requirement, providing a total capacity of approximately 32 vehicle spaces; HGV zones of 20 m and courier/parcel delivery zones of 10 m

Stage 2: Hohenstaufenplatz (from August 2025)

The next construction phase began in August 2025: a roughly 50-metre section of Schönleinstraße is being redesigned. Planned measures include: bollards to prevent motor vehicle through traffic (whilst maintaining cycle access), barriers to allow access for residents' rear courtyards and emergency vehicles, de-sealing along existing tree pits, new benches and bicycle stands, and potentially additional space for outdoor hospitality. Loading and delivery traffic will be accommodated on adjacent areas.

Scientific monitoring and community engagement

Alongside the physical measures, the WZB and paper planes e.V. independently conducted research and participation processes. These included quantitative surveys, focus groups with business owners, older residents and people with disabilities, thematic workshops (on water management and noise/disorder, among other topics), and the citizen science project CompAIR, which measured air quality and traffic flow. The research and participation reports were completed in April 2024.

Furthermore, the initiative Kiezlabor from Technologiestiftung Berlin stopped by for a week of discussions and citizen engagements in September 2023.

Key actors

• District Authority Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg / Streets and Green Spaces Office (SGA): implementation of traffic and street redesign measures
• Berlin Social Science Centre (WZB): scientific monitoring and research report
• paper planes e.V.: community engagement and participation report
• Berlin 21 e.V.: support for participation formats
• Naturfreunde Berlin e.V.: support for implementation measures (including environmental detective workshops for children)
• BVG (Jelbi): provision of shared-mobility stations
• German Aerospace Centre (DLR): research partner
• RIFS Potsdam: research partner
• Nürtingen-Geislingen University of Economics and Environment (HfWU): research partner
• CompAIR / inter 3: citizen science project (air quality and traffic)
• Berlin Senate Department for the Environment, Mobility, Consumer Protection and Climate Action: funding

The costs of the measures implemented by the district authority amounted to €112,759, financed through the Senate Special Programme for Urban Beautification (discontinued after 2023).

The costs of the research (WZB) and community engagement (paper planes e.V.) were not borne by the district authority, but were funded through third-party grants secured by the participating institutions, including:

• Stiftung Mercator
• Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (German Federal Environmental Foundation)
• Climate Change Center Berlin
• WZB (own funds)

As of 2026, no funding is available in either the district or the state budget for extending the project to further areas of the Graefekiez. The changed priorities of the Senate administration and associated budget cuts present an additional obstacle to continuation.

The district authority regards the measures implemented in the core area as a success:

• The traffic-calmed zone is now more clearly recognisable and can be used more effectively by pedestrians
• De-sealed surfaces function as green infrastructure and have been embraced by the local community
• Jelbi stations have significantly reduced the number of shared-mobility vehicles parked on pavements; within the first six months (October 2023 to February 2024), 20,000 rentals were recorded via Jelbi in the Graefekiez
• Loading and delivery zones provide legal stopping opportunities without obstructing traffic (approximately 32 spaces at 8 locations)
• Sightlines and safe street use have been considerably improved through neighbourhood terraces, de-sealed surfaces and bicycle stands
• The social and recreational function of the core area has been significantly strengthened

Public acceptance according to WZB survey:

• Greening of car parking spaces: >50% rated "very good", 25% opposed
• Loading and delivery zones: >60% in favour, only 12% opposed
• More seating: 43% in favour, 27% opposed
• In a separate survey in 2021, two thirds of respondents across the entire district had rated the reallocation of parking spaces as an urgent matter — approval levels remained stable despite intense public debate.

• Legal constraints: At the time of the project, German road traffic law (StVO) required that a specific and demonstrable hazard be established before parking spaces can be reallocated. This could not be proven for the neighbourhood as a whole, only for individual sections (e.g. in front of Lemgo Primary School). The original concept had to be fundamentally revised.
• Soil contamination: Soil samples taken in Graefestraße revealed contamination in the subsoil, requiring replacement of material to a depth of 30 cm and delaying the start of construction by approximately four weeks. This illustrates the practical challenges of de-sealing in a densely built inner-city environment.
• Funding: Implementation was only possible through the Senate Special Programme for Urban Beautification, which was discontinued after 2023. No funding is available for an extension of the project.
• Staffing capacity: The project placed enormous demands on capacity across the district authority; further measures outside the core area could not be implemented.
• Open space plan not completed: The project was intended to produce an open space plan for the public realm, which was not completed. As a result, a planning basis for extending the measures across the entire neighbourhood is still missing.
• Social inclusion: Focus groups revealed that older residents and people with disabilities expressed concerns about their established mobility patterns. The Werner-Düttmann housing estate was barely reached by the participation activities.
• Political context: The changed priorities of the new Senate administration and associated budget cuts make continuation more difficult.

• The legal framework for road traffic must be assessed at an early stage. Road traffic law, as a body of law primarily concerned with hazard prevention, at the time of the project was only partially suited to street redesign driven by urban planning objectives.
• A two-stage approach — beginning with a core area before developing an overall concept — proved to be a legally more robust path and allowed experience to be gathered before scaling up.
• The combination of independent scientific monitoring (WZB) and autonomous community engagement (paper planes e.V.) generated valuable insights and strengthened the legitimacy of the process.
• De-sealing measures and shared-mobility provision can be effective even at a small scale and can be embraced by local communities even in areas where car ownership is already low.
• Broad communication in multiple languages, in plain language, and across a range of channels is essential to reach diverse population groups.
• Long-term, mainstreamed funding and sufficient staffing in the streets and green spaces office are prerequisites for sustaining and scaling up the approach.
• The project has developed a transferable model: the tested space allocation framework (including 26% green space, 25% pedestrian and social space, 7% shared mobility) can serve as a template for traffic-calmed zones in other urban neighbourhoods.
• Comparable approaches exist in other cities (e.g. "Ottensen macht Platz" in Hamburg) showing that cross-project comparison and exchange is valuable for cities considering similar interventions.

District Authority Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg. Project page.

District Authority Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg. Project news.

BVV Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg. Consolidated document including project reports.