Germans, so the old stereotype goes, love their cars. But traffic in their capital is driving many of them mad — albeit for contradictory reasons — and has become a surprise hot-button issue in a Berlin election year.

In a city where complaints over crumbling infrastructure, glacially slow bureaucracy and limited public housing have been people’s main gripes, the rights of car owners have suddenly taken center stage. The right insists that driving restrictions to limit congestion are an attack on people’s freedom, and the left counters that change is needed to protect the environment and the quality of life.

Berlin has long embraced environmentally friendly initiatives, with its many bike lanes, car-pooling services and extensive public transport. In recent months, green-minded Berliners have moved to take that to the next level, with tens of thousands signing a petition to limit most private vehicles’ ability to enter the traffic-snarled city center, down to just 12 visits per person per year.

“Fewer cars, More Berlin,” read one slogan found on posters plastered across the city during the recent petition drive.

Those who fought the petition also resent the city’s congestion, but they have a radically different suggestion: Pare back bike lanes and other environmentally friendly innovations that they say make the traffic worse.

“Ban the banning of cars,” the incumbent Christian Democratic Union, the center-right party leading the backlash, said on its own posters.