Polling stations opened in Paris on Sunday for a referendum on tripling parking prices for hefty SUV-style vehicles, a marketing campaign that has drivers’ teams up in arms in opposition to metropolis corridor.
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Some 1.3 million Parisians are eligible to solid their poll on the change, which might see vehicles weighing 1.6 tonnes or extra charged 18 euros ($19.50) per hour for parking in central areas, or 12 euros additional out.
Totally electrical vehicles must prime two tonnes to be affected, whereas folks dwelling or working in Paris, taxi drivers, tradespeople, well being employees and other people with disabilities would all be exempt.
“The larger they’re, the extra they pollute,” Paris’ Socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo mentioned in December to justify the step.
On her watch, town has pedestrianised many streets, together with the banks of the river Seine, and constructed a community of cycle lanes in an effort to discourage driving and cut back dangerous transport emissions.
Environmental group WWF has dubbed SUVs an “aberration”, saying they burn 15 % extra gas than a traditional coupe and price extra to construct and buy.
Metropolis corridor has additional pointed to security issues about taller, heavier SUVs, which it says are “twice as lethal for pedestrians as a regular automobile” in an accident.
The autos are additionally singled out for taking on extra public house — whether or not on the highway or whereas parked — than others.
Paris authorities say the typical automobile has placed on 250 kilograms (550 kilos) since 1990.
Hidalgo, whose metropolis will this summer season host the 2024 Olympics, hardly ever misses an opportunity to boast of the environmental credentials of the city corridor and its drive to drastically cut back automobile use within the centre.
35 million euros per yr
However drivers’ teams have attacked the scheme, with Yves Carra of Mobilite Membership France saying the “SUV” classification is “a advertising and marketing time period” that “means nothing”.
He argued that compact SUVs wouldn’t be coated by the measures, which might nonetheless hit family-sized coupes and property vehicles.
Conservative opposition figures on the Paris council say this imprecise concentrating on of the referendum “exhibits the extent of the manipulation by town authorities”.
Even amongst fuel-burning vehicles, “a brand new, trendy SUV… doesn’t pollute extra, and even pollutes much less, than a small diesel automobile constructed earlier than 2011”, mentioned drivers’ group 40 thousands and thousands d’automobilistes.
Maud Gatel, an MP from the centrist MoDem get together, mentioned that “if this was actually about limiting air pollution, there could be a distinction made between inside combustion and hybrid or electrical autos”.
The big selection of exemptions would depart nearly 27 % of SUVs in Paris unaffected by the upper parking charges, she added, citing figures from analysis agency AAA Information.
Hidalgo’s transport chief David Belliard, of the Inexperienced get together, says round 10 % of autos in Paris could be hit by the upper parking charges, which may herald as much as 35 million euros per yr.
Paris’s anti-SUV push has not gone unnoticed elsewhere in France, with the Inexperienced get together mayor in Lyon planning a three-tier parking price for each residents and guests from June.
The final metropolis referendum in Paris, on banning hop-on, hop-off rental scooters from the capital’s streets, handed in an April 2023 vote — however solely drew a turnout of seven %.
(AFP)