Traffic
Paris votes on higher parking fees for SUVs
Hanover’s mayor Belit Onay (Greens) advocated making parking for so-called SUVs more expensive. photo
© Soeren Stache/dpa
Parking in Paris could be really expensive for SUV drivers. This Sunday the population will vote on tripling the fees. The plan is met with criticism – and interest in Germany.
The city’s argument for higher fees for SUVs: The heavy bodies caused increased environmental pollution, took up a lot of public space and endangered traffic safety.
The city emphasizes that the special tariff for large cars is intended to limit the nuisance they cause. “This vote should send a message to automobile manufacturers. Their pursuit of profit, which consists of deliberately selling ever larger, more fuel-efficient and more expensive vehicles, is endangering ecological change.” With the vote on Sunday, the population could calm down the public space and support a new social model.
Only visitors should pay the special tariff for SUVs. Residents should be excluded, as should tradesmen and care services. The tariff should apply to combustion engine and hybrid models weighing 1.6 tons or more and electric models weighing two tons or more. The regulation does not apply to private parking garages.
Role model for Germany?
Germany is also looking at the plans in Paris. Hanover’s mayor Belit Onay (Greens) advocated making parking for so-called SUVs more expensive. “The trend towards more and more larger and heavier cars continues,” he told the “Tagesspiegel” (Saturday). “I therefore have great sympathy for a price scale for parking fees based on the length of the vehicles.” The Paris citizen survey shows once again that the debate needs to be about the limited public space and more appropriate pricing for parking. All major European cities face this challenge. He is very excited about the result.
Also with a view to Paris, the German Environmental Aid (DUH) recently called on all German cities to set higher parking fees for ever larger SUVs. “These monster SUVs are increasingly blocking sidewalks and green spaces and endangering people who are on foot or cycling. The megalomania surrounding SUVs must be stopped,” said DUH Federal Managing Director Jürgen Resch. The General German Automobile Club (ADAC) criticized the DUH demand. “However, higher parking fees for vehicles weighing over 1.6 tons cannot be a solution,” it said. This would also affect vehicles that are not classic SUVs.
The German Association of Cities and Municipalities expressed skepticism. The municipal association said that grading parking fees based on vehicle size is difficult to implement in practice and has so far only been attempted by a few cities. In June 2023, the Federal Administrative Court determined that jumps in fees based on vehicle length should not be too large. Illegal unequal treatment must be ruled out.
In France, the automobile club “40 million d’automobilistes” has already launched a petition against higher parking fees for heavy vehicles, which are planned in Lyon, Bordeaux and Grenoble in addition to Paris. According to the automobile club, the victims of the increased parking rates are primarily families who treat themselves to a car with more space. It is foreseeable that restrictions will be tightened overall. “Don’t kid yourself: This fight against SUVs is just a loophole to eradicate the car as a whole,” said the club.
In Paris, the fight against SUVs is part of a traffic turnaround that has been pushed forward for years by the socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo and the red-green city government. As the business newspaper “Les Échos” calculated based on registration data, the increased parking fees would affect almost 900,000 cars in the capital region of Île-de-France, around 16 percent of the vehicle population.