#464: BVG strike over, de-icing, activists sentenced
Autonomous buses next year?
Dear 20 Percent,
Yesterday, during the BVG strike — when all the car-share cars were out being shared — I had to drag my six-year-old son through Artic headwinds to the much dreaded dentist. He stayed brave. I didn’t. That 1 kilometre felt like 10. A private hell of sorts.
An unpleasant situation for us but life-threatening for others: people living on the streets; those in Ukraine whose heat and electricity have been deliberately targeted by Vladimir Putin.
And so here are two donation links to organisations helping those suffering the most this winter:
The German Red Cross campaign for Ukraine.
Berliner Stadtmission, which provides support, shelter and care for the homeless.
Berlin news below!
🙏 A warm thank you to today’s sponsor, Factofly. More from them below.
BVG back
Following the nationwide “warning strike” on Monday, the BVG and much public transport across the country is back to normal. All kinds of new construction sites and replacement buses wreak havoc on S-Bahn service this week, though. Check their site to avoid nasty surprises. German acronym of the day: ÖPNV (öffentliche Nahverkehr) meaning “local public transport”. Pronounced “uh-peh-en-vau”. Rolls off the tongue, nicht wahr?
Climate convictions
Two and a half years after a paint attack on the Brandenburg Gate, four Letzte Generation” (Last Generation) climate activists have been convicted and sentenced in a Berlin court. Three men and one woman were found guilty of property damage or resisting law enforcement officers. The activists were handed down fines between €1,200 and €3,300. The activists belonged to a group of 12 who spraypainted our beloved Gate in 2023 to draw attention to the climate crisis. The prosecution has appealed the ruling — I guess they want a harsher sentence.
Berlin v ice
Speaking of climate: Hundreds of broken bones later, mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) decided to make sidewalk safety Chefsache (top priority). Over the weekend, hundreds of parks department workers were sent out to spread gravel around. Wegner temporarily permitted the use of melting salts on pavements, despite their negative environmental impact. And the sanitation department BSR has stocked up on hundreds of tonnes of gravel — which they’re handing out for free at recycling centres. The thing is: Building owners are, in fact, responsible for clearing sidewalks in front of their properties. But the prevailing attitude seems to be “not my problem”. And enforcement of that rule is non-existent.
Meanwhile, in the IT department…
When it comes to digitalisation the Berlin administration has been chronically, shall we say, disappointing. And like every other western European government body, it’s now freaked out by its dependency upon US technology in the Trump era. Hence, it’s published a new open source strategy (PDF). No more “vendor-imposed pressure” and “almost non-negotiable license terms” from American cloud providers, please. And let’s migrate to “public money, public code”, as is already common in Germany. Sounds great. But as this article points out: “…the path from theory to practice is traditionally rocky in Berlin. A look at the current state of IT modernization reveals a gap between strategic ambition and technical reality. The administration has been struggling for years to even keep its Windows-based workstations up to date.” Fingers crossed.
I’d love to see you all at the 20% Berlin News Quiz next Wednesday. Spots limited!
🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺
🪙 Are Germany’s gold reserves safe in New York?
🚆 Deutsche Bahn punctuality down again
😑 AfD bonds with Austrian extremists
🤾 Germany loses handball final against Denmark
Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin
🎹 XJAZZ! presents: Elijah Fox - Improvised Solo Piano
Wednesday, 04.02, 8 pm (doors 7 pm). Emmauskirche, Kreuzberg. €25
Three-time Grammy-nominated pianist improvises an entire concert responding to Berlin - each city gets a unique performance, recorded as a document. Keith Jarrett-inspired, tours with Yussef Dayes. Latest album: Ambient Works for the Highways of Los Angeles. Deep listening, church acoustics.
📷 C/O Berlin: Triple Opening Night
Friday, 06.02, 8 pm. Mexican DJ duo Pencasonics spins all-vinyl cumbia/norteña/hip-hop from 9 pm. C/O Berlin, Charlottenburg. Free
Three exhibitions open at photo space C/O this weekend: Graciela Iturbide's first major Berlin retrospective, "Eyes to Fly With," presents 50+ years documenting Mexico's Zapotec matriarchy, Seri nomads, cholos subculture, and Frida Kahlo's Casa Azul. Dörte Eißfeldt's five-decade survey of experimental German photography. Sheung Yiu merges face reading, physiognomy, and facial recognition tech
🪩 Refuge Worldwide 5th Birthday
Saturday, 07.02, 7 pm-2 am. Secret location near Jannowitzbrücke. €17-20 + €5 membership
Community radio's 5th: 2.5-hour improvised jam with saxophonist Cassie Kinoshi, dancehall's Gavsborg, Afro-Brazilian percussionist K'boko, and Mississippi rapper Sorvina. Hip-hop legend DJ Amir b2b Jaxx TMS follows. Drag sensation BLEACH closes bar room
🎸 Lydia Lunch's Big Sexy Noise + Mellowdeath
Sunday, 08.02, 7 pm. Neue Zukunft, Friedrichshain. €24
No wave legend Lydia Lunch returns with cult project Big Sexy Noise: James Johnston on molten guitar, Ian White (Barry Adamson) on shuffling groove, and Lunch's venomous snarl. Blues-soaked 70s heavy rock flipped brutal. Celebrating their new live album.
Factoid
BVG boss Henrik Falk expects Berlin to approve the operation of autonomous vehicles in public transport some time next year. Falk told Tagesspiegel: “In 10 years, autonomous driving could have led to 25 percent of cars registered in Berlin voluntarily disappearing.” His best-case scenario: “With 10,000 autonomous vehicles, it would be possible to achieve the transport performance of up to 200,000 private cars.” While Falk seems like the most competent BVG director in a while, that projection feels a little optimistic for a city that feels eternally stuck in pilot projects.
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🎙️The 20% Berlin Podcast on Spotify
Solid roundup of Berlin's infrastructure chaos right now. The bit about autonomous buses replacing 200k cars feels overly ambitous given how the city can't even handle gravel distribution consistently. Saw firsthand during last week's strike how quickly car-sharing networks get overwhelmed. BVG's pilot project comment seems spot-on forsomeone who's watched Berlin tech initiatives stall repeatedly.
Nice Factoid. I predict the following on these autonomous vehicles: no 360 cams due to our old friend Datenschutz and that will just invite the vandals and strongly principled people to ruin these. Might even find one in Landwehrkanal at some point!
And it will be yet another grand failure of our masters of poor system design; a failure to do good use case analysis before implementing the project. Nope. Egomaniacs come first, folks!