Berlin's Friedrichstrasse is an outdated boulevard with a dazzling past and an uncertain future.
In the capital, it is currently the cause of a quarrel within the red-red-green state government, which has washed up and two weeks before a fateful election is unparalleled even in the turbulent political life.
The Green Transport Senator Bettina Jarasch has banned car traffic from major parts of the former entertainment mile - without the consent of the Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey (SPD), knowing full well that she would not have gotten it either.
The argument is there, the sign is set: the cars have to go.
Corinna Budras
Business correspondent in Berlin.
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Almost six hundred kilometers to the south-west, a bitter battle is also raging for the asphalt, which is even becoming violent.
This time it's about a stretch of road in Frankfurt that has not yet been built, a "gap closure" on the A 66 motorway that has been in the planning for years and is now finally being tackled.
He should free the Frankfurt city center from through traffic.
To do this, a piece of the Fechenheimer forest has to be cleared, which drives environmental activists to their timbered tree houses.
It is primarily about the longhorned beetle, which can serve as the last straw in the fight against the sealing of the landscape shortly before the gates close.
In fact, the dispute is much more fundamental: Should the state invest money, time and energy in the road network, which Federal Environment Minister Steffi Lemke never tires of emphasizing is the second densest in the world, right behind Japan?
Or do we still need – and as quickly as possible – new and, above all, renovated roads, over which the ever-increasing car traffic can be routed, as FDP Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing insists?
In Berlin as well as in Hesse, there is a dispute that extends to federal politics.
On Thursday, the coalition committee even had to meet with the party leaders of the SPD, Greens and FDP to settle the months-long dispute between the Greens and the Liberals.
So far unsuccessful.
However, the dispute does not remain stuck in federal politics, it wanders through the municipalities and will soon occupy the rest of society as well.
For decades, “motorized private transport” was the pride of an entire nation, an expression of a prosperous economy and boundless freedom.
Whole generations of transport ministers, who were exclusively male, associated joy with the road and frustration with the rail.
Billions of euros have flowed into this mode of transport, much to the chagrin of the growing industry of private rail freight companies, which sees rail as the “Cinderella” of German transport policy.
While the rail network has been dismantled over the years, the federal government has not only made a mess when it comes to building new roads, but also when it comes to road construction.
"The expansion of the road had a massive impact on the market shares of road and rail," criticizes Ludolf Kerkeling, Chairman of the Association of Freight Railways.
Trucks now transport ten times as much goods through the country as the much more climate-friendly freight trains.
The construction of further tracks also contributed to this.
While the road network has almost doubled to around 840,000 kilometers over the past seventy years, the rail network has shrunk to around 38,000 kilometers.
The current Federal Transport Route Plan, created by the black-red coalition in 2016, also lists hundreds of road construction projects, such as closing the gap in the A66, which actually have to be completed by 2030.
the rail network has shrunk to around 38,000 kilometers.
The current Federal Transport Route Plan, created by the black-red coalition in 2016, also lists hundreds of road construction projects, such as closing the gap in the A66, which actually have to be completed by 2030.
the rail network has shrunk to around 38,000 kilometers.
The current Federal Transport Route Plan, created by the black-red coalition in 2016, also lists hundreds of road construction projects, such as closing the gap in the A66, which actually have to be completed by 2030.