Berlin’s mayor called the plan “unrealistic” back in May, aligning herself with the rest of the Social Democrats, who were joined by every other major political party in the country in their lack of support for the measure at the time of the September elections. A small group of German cities has banned diesel engine cars since the end of 2018. 

Activists in the country have been pushing for a car-free city since 2019 when a group of lawyers formally drew up a plan known as the Volksentscheid Berlin autofrei. The group has since grown to over 50,000 supporters (enough to trigger the referendum) who believe the forced change of habit is necessary to ward off a lackadaisical state where 37% of the population falls victim to what organizers call the “dictatorship of the car.”

“It’s as much about our immediate environment as it is about the environment at large,” one of the group’s founders told The Guardian in October. “It’s about how we all want to live, breathe, and play together. We want people to be able to sleep with their windows open, and children to be able to play in the street again. And grandparents should be able to ride their bicycles safely and have plenty of benches to take a breather on.”