Parisians voted to triple the parking fee for SUV vehicles in order for the city to become greener and better adapted to pedestrians and cyclists. The vote held on Sunday was the last move in the efforts of the city’s socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo to make changes in the city ahead of this year’s Olympic Games.
There was a low turnout at the voting, but more than 54% of the votes supported the measure, which proposes an increase in the parking fee for large SUV vehicles that are not from the city, to 18 euros per hour in the center, according to reports in the French media.
Only 5.7% of the 1.3 million eligible voters turned out to vote at 39 polling stations across the city, as reported by Le Monde.
In the call to vote that she posted on social networks, Anne Hidalgo mentioned that SUVs take up too much space on the narrow streets of Paris, and that they cause too much pollution, threaten the health and the planet, and cause more traffic accidents than smaller cars.
She also stated that „the time has come to stop this trend of always larger, higher, and wider cars. You have the power to reclaim ownership of our streets“.
According to the proposal, the parking fee for SUV vehicles for residents not from Paris in the central city districts would increase to 18 euros per hour for the first two hours. After that period, parking would be subject to fines, for example, a six-hour stay of an SUV on a parking spot would cost 225 euros.
For districts outside the city center, from the 12th to the 20th, the parking fee for SUVs would be 12 euros per hour for the first two hours, and 150 euros for six hours, as fewer people live there.
There were different opinions among Parisians regarding this matter. A 20-year-old student, Siren Demur, said that because of the larger vehicles, the traffic jams are even more complicated, and ecological and parking issues must be considered.
On the other hand, a 75-year-old Jadim Lorlendu said that SUVs do not bother her and do not take up more space than other cars. She said that parking spots are marked and people should drive what they want because it is a matter of freedom.
The vote came after last year’s consultation in the city council on whether to ban the rental of electric scooters. Around 15,000 such devices were expelled from the streets of the French capital as almost 90% of the voters supported the proposal for a ban.
In a country of car lovers, where Renault, Citroen, and Peugeot were born, Hidalgo has been working for years to discourage the use of cars. Motor vehicles are completely banned from certain roads, especially along the banks of the Seine, which used to be a busy road. It has now become a refuge for cyclists, runners, families, and romantic couples.
In the city council, they say that, since the traffic has been halved, SUVs hinder progress and pollute the air due to their huge dimensions. They claim that the impacts of SUVs on pedestrians are twice as deadly as those of smaller cars. It is also noted that two-thirds of Parisians currently do not have a car.
The proposed increase in parking fees would apply to conventional or hybrid SUVs coming from outside the city and weighing at least 1.6 tons or at least two tons if the cars are electric.
