The money was going to be wasted, poor people would also have to pay, they wanted to have the opportunity to park for free (those with cars) even though they had never actually parked in those streets, the money would just be spent on anything and not on public transportation or protecting the environment, they had to pay €1,50 extra because they parked a minute too long in some parking house recently...

That's what I got from the conversations, in memory. There's actually one interesting thing in there (EARMARK the [expletive] money so you have an [expletive] argument!)

Then I have the arguments from the people who were behind the citizen's initiative, on paper:

• Parking fees affect everybody (summation of people who pay, like visitors, people going to the doctor, ...)
  
• Mitte is just the beginning, eventually parking fees will be everywhere, parking fees are like a domino game
  
• Resident's vignettes cost money [€20,40 for 2 years, but the price is not mentioned] and don't guarantee a place
  
• Parking fees don't make a contribution to environmental protection [the argument is that people stop and start more]
  
• Parking fees don't free up parking space
  
• Milder measures are not considered [parking discs]
  
• Once parking fees are introduced, it is easy to increase them
  
• Guest vignettes mean going through the bureaucracy, and paying again
  
• The district has no money, parking fees bring lots of money
  
• Parking is not a luxury
  
• The people of Mitte are already environmentally conscious
  
• There will be no less double parking if there are parking fees
  
• There should only be parking fees where they make sense

A lot of this is obviously specious, mutually contradictory, etc.