Tram 21 | Strife on Sonntagsstraße

Like an annoying mother-in-law, the construction site around Ostkreuz hasn't entirely stopped driving everyone crazy, but over the years, we've just come to terms with the fact that it's there and it probably won't be going away anytime soon. But now, Friedrichshainers living on the Northern side of the new monster train station will have to take a deep breath. For months, plans for a tram route through Sonntagsstraße, a placid and relatively narrow street, have been hovering over the Kiez like the Sword of Damocles. Precicely speaking, the idea is much older than that – it's been around since the 90's. .

The city wants to connect their fancy new station to the local tram network. Until now, transfers between the tram station and Ostkreuz have required a 150 meter walk – too much, according to the city. Ever since the end of the construction period has been set for 2016, the topic has become relevant again.

Maybe the local residents had hoped until the very end that the scheme would eventually get turned down by the senate. But the city administration wouldn't budge, and neither would the tenants on Sonntagsstraße. An initiative called Zukunft Ostkreuz already launched a brainstorming session last spring and organized several jam-packed neighborhood forums where the community came up with a set of alternative routes that they submitted to the senate. One of the more popular ideas was to create a turnaround terminus at Marktstraße. Next to creative juices, emotions ran high among locals, and Zukunft Ostkreuz posted a short film on their website that backed comments by Sonntagsstraße residents with dramatic guitar and piano music.

Petra Rohland said she sympathized with the protesters. But Rohland, a pressspokesperson for the Senate Department of Urban Development and Environment, also stressed that her department needed to look at the issue from a different angle: "We are looking for a solution from which the city as a whole will profit." But Rohland could or would not answer concretely about why the senate chose Sonntagsstraße for that solution, of all places. "The plans were made years ago and were considered the best possible solution. But since we met with such strong reactions from the community. we decided to review the plans. That's a concession from our side. The whole process will run through an official declaratory relief procedure. We're hoping to reach an understanding by the beginning of next year."

The conflict is symptomatic for a new type of discussion that has emerged in the city over the past years: Berlin is constantly changing, and everyone's kind of excited about that. At the same time, rents are rising and clubs are being "commercialized". The truth is: You can't make everyone happy. A young man from the Sonntagsstraße film put the problem in a nutshell: "Once people have found a nice place, they tend to only think about making it even nicer instead of just leaving things as they are."

(isi)