Paris votes to triple SUV parking charges – and this contains electrical ones

Parisians have voted to triple the parking prices for SUVs – together with heavier electrical ones and hybrids. This Sunday, the town held a referendum, with Parisians voting 56.6% in favor of elevated parking charges.

Whereas the slender, traffic-clogged streets of Paris appear a greater match for the likes of the nimble Twingo, metropolis officers say that the variety of SUVs within the metropolis has elevated by 60% during the last 4 years. SUVs account for 15% of the 1.15 million non-public autos parked on Paris streets each evening.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo sees the transfer to curb SUVs within the metropolis as “a type of social justice,” with highway security and air air pollution the principle targets of the vote. She stated that the vote had one explicit driver in thoughts: wealthy drivers of the heaviest, costliest, and polluting vehicles on the road who, basically, must get up and see how their decisions have an effect on the remainder of the town – with the caveat that solely out-of-towners might be affected by the worth hike. Nonetheless, officers say that some 10% of the autos parked in Paris will see elevated parking charges, which may usher in as much as €35 million, experiences Le Monde.

“Parisians have made a transparent selection… different cities will comply with,” Hidalgo added. Lyon, France’s third largest metropolis and run by the Inexperienced Occasion, has devised its personal progressive parking payment system designed to focus on SUVs, with Grenoble trying on. London Mayor Sadiq Khan has stated that he too is being attentive to the Paris vote, The Guardian experiences.

The brand new charges may come into pressure in the beginning of September, with on-street parking for an SUV raised to €18 (about $19) an hour within the middle of Paris and €12 (about $13) in the remainder of the town.

The worth hikes applies to ICE or hybrid SUVs weighing greater than 1.6 tonnes (about 3,500 kilos), and electrical SUVs weighing greater than 2 tonnes, or 4,000 kilos. Paris residents won’t need to pay additional. Individuals working in Paris, taxi drivers, tradespeople, well being staff, and folks with disabilities will all be exempt.

Final yr, Paris held an analogous referendum that voted to ban electrical scooter rental companies, the primary and solely European capital to take action. In fact, the turnout for the vote was solely 103,000 folks, or 7% of registered voters. The SUV referendum, which was held Sunday, February 4, garnered even fewer votes, with 78,121 folks, or 5.7% of registered voters, Le Monde experiences. Nonetheless, whereas not many individuals ventured out on to solid their vote, Le Parisien ran an Opionway ballot this month that discovered 61% of metropolis residents backed the plan to hike frees for SUVs.

The socialist mayor has put entrance and middle a discount in automobile utilization whereas concurrently boosting eco-friendly transport within the metropolis. SUVs – that are taller, heavier, and deadlier and use extra vitality and assets than a typical sedan – account for nearly half of all new passenger vehicles offered in Europe final yr, based on the European Car Producers Affiliation. A pedestrian is twice as more likely to die in a collision with an SUV than an ordinary car, Hidalgo acknowledged.

She has made massive strikes in increasing bike lanes by decreasing parking areas. Up to now few years because the coronavirus lockdowns, there was a 71% rise in the usage of bikes within the metropolis. In fact, I needed I’d see extra helmets on heads right here – as a result of even with extra bike lanes, Paris visitors is intense, with bikes lane typically merging out and in of visitors lanes.

Regardless, Hidalgo is hoping automakers will get the message, that there isn’t a place for enormous, cumbersome, polluting SUVs in a metropolis like Paris. “With this vote, we need to say cease,” she has stated. “Cease the excesses of carmakers, who’re pushing folks to purchase ever greater, costlier, extra raw-material-intensive, extra polluting autos.”