"Garden street" modelled on Paris street to open in Berlin

The Berlin neighbourhood of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg is set to design the capital’s first “garden street” (Gartenstraße), modelled on designs in Paris.

Danneckstraße will become "garden street"

District authorities in the eastern Berlin neighbourhood of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg have announced that they will spend 1,6 million euros to transform a pedestrianised street into a “garden street”.

Danneckerstraße, just a stone’s throw from Warschauer Straße, has been a pedestrianised street dotted with potted trees since 2020. Now, the local authorities plan to go one step further, adding shrubbery beds, benches, many trees and a pathway.

Berlin Greens inspired by Paris street

The plan to remodel Danneckerstraße was put forward by Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg mayor Clara Hermann (Greens). Hermann travelled to Paris in October 2025 and was “very impressed” by the 13th arrondissement’s Rue Jardin.

“Paris shows us: visions are realisable,” Hermann said, according to a report by B.Z. Others disagree. CDU district councillor Marita Fabeck claimed Hermann’s plans were poorly thought out.

“Paris is often staged by the Greens as a great role model for a car-free city, and it is strongly romanticised in the process. However, a short reality check is enough to ground this myth: Berlin is about 8,5 times larger than Paris in terms of area, and has different traffic flows,” Fabeck said.

In March 2025, Parisians voted to ban cars from an additional 500 streets across the city; 300 streets already had a car ban in place. Back in Berlin, in January 2026, a campaign began to collect signatures supporting a referendum on whether the German city should become car-free within the Ringbahn line.

Organisers must collect at least 170.000 signatures from locals before May 8, 2026. If the signatures are validated, the referendum can go ahead.