F“For or against the introduction of a special tariff for the parking of heavy, bulky, polluting private cars?” The wording of the question that the city of Paris is putting to its residents for a vote on Sunday is already dividing opinion. A columnist in the daily newspaper “L'Opinion” spoke of an “anti-SUV referendum” by socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo in her fight against cars. The question hardens the fronts and turns people against each other, wrote the business magazine “Challenges”.
If you follow an opinion poll, the town hall knows that a majority of Parisians support the initiative. He plans to significantly increase the parking fee for visitors with larger vehicles on the streets of the French capital – from the current 6 euros per hour in the inner and 4 euros in the outer districts to 18 and 12 euros. Since the tariffs in Paris increase progressively from the third hour onwards, the fees would multiply if you stay longer: for four hours you would have to pay 117 and 78 euros instead of 39 and 26 euros, for six hours you would have to pay 225 and 150 euros instead of 75 and 50 Euro.
Exceptions for residents
Anyone driving a vehicle with a combustion engine or plug-in hybrid weighing more than 1.6 tons would be affected. This includes not only the popular sport utility vehicles (SUVs), but also crossovers, SUVs and heavy sedans. The higher tariff of 2 tonnes would apply to electric cars. Residents and local businesses remained exempt from the fee in their permitted parking zone. The same should apply to taxi drivers at the special taxi ranks as well as craftsmen, healthcare workers and people with disabilities. You can buy parking tickets in Paris by entering your license plate number at machines or in an app. For several years now, the check has been carried out by private service providers who drive through the streets with automatic license plate reading systems.
The socialist mayor justifies her initiative by receiving many complaints about “too many large, environmentally harmful cars”. These are taking up “more and more space on our streets, sidewalks and even on our bicycle paths,” Hidalgo explained in a video message and recalled the successful vote on the e-scooter ban last year.
She is also interested in sending a political signal beyond city limits. “With this vote we want to say stop, stop the excesses of automobile manufacturers, which entice people to buy ever larger, more expensive, more resource-intensive and more environmentally harmful vehicles,” she said.
Environmental pollution kills people every day and must be radically reduced. Added to this is greater safety: the probability that a pedestrian will be killed in a collision with an SUV is twice as high as with a standard vehicle. In Lyon, which is governed by the Green Party, a similar scale for parking fees is set to come into force in June.
There is no lack of criticism
It's not just the usual anti-car activists who support Hidalgo's course. Help came from an unexpectedly prominent source, namely Fatih Birol, head of the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA). In the French business newspaper “Les Echos”, the economist welcomed “stronger regulation” of SUV traffic in cities via the tax lever or higher parking fees.
“It is crucial to solve the problems that SUVs pose in terms of additional energy requirements, occupied public space and additional danger to pedestrians,” said Birol. Parked SUVs take up an average of 0.5 square meters more space than a conventional car and emit 20 percent more CO2 out as limousines.
But there is no lack of criticism of the Paris mayor. For example, in the form of holding a referendum with tendentious questions in which the result is to be expected – while the town hall wisely only organized an online consultation instead of a vote on the request to reserve one of the four lanes of the ring motorway for carpooling and public transport. The rejection rate was more than 80 percent. In addition, only around two million capital city residents are allowed to vote on Sunday. The parking fees are likely to primarily affect the more than ten million people in the banlieue, not all of whom are connected to the bus and train network.
There is also criticism that the mayor is stigmatizing SUVs. “These vehicles that the Paris City Council blames for all the evil and points its finger at are in fact the modern version of the minivan,” commented the conservative daily Le Figaro. Their purpose is to transport families. In addition, many things fall into the SUV category and the most frequently sold models in France are mostly compact vehicles with a maximum length of 4.3 meters such as the Peugeot 2008 or Renault Captur.
SUVs have been growing in popularity around the world for years. According to the IEA, in 2023 this vehicle category accounted for 48 percent of all global new car sales. The advantages include a better overview thanks to the higher seating position and easier entry and exit, especially for older people. In France, a penalty fee has been levied since the beginning of 2022 when heavier combustion engines are registered for the first time, which is now due from 1.6 tonnes and is increasing progressively. It must be in addition to that according to CO2-Emissions staggered penalty tax must be paid, which amounts to a maximum of 60,000 euros.
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