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Paris is taking the fight against SUVs seriously: in a citizen survey, a majority voted in favor of a drastic increase in parking fees for heavy city vehicles. On Sunday, the city council’s plan was implemented, according to which one hour of parking for SUVs and other heavy cars should cost 18 euros in the center instead of the usual 6 euros and in the suburbs 12 euros instead of 4 euros. For six hours of parking in the center you have to pay 225 euros instead of the previous 75 euros. The intention is for the new scheme to come into effect from September 1 this year.

About 1.3 million residents of the capital took part in the vote under the motto “More or less SUV in Paris?” called. According to the preliminary final results, only just under six percent of them took part in the vote. About 54.5 percent voted in favor of increasing parking rates, about 45.5 percent against.

The city’s argument for higher fees for SUVs: the heavy bodies caused more environmental pollution, took up a lot of public space and endangered road safety. The special rate for large cars was intended to limit the nuisance they cause.

“Parisians are at the forefront of a movement, many cities will certainly follow suit,” Mayor Anne Hidalgo said after the decision. “They want to take the space away from these heavy cars on the streets, for environmental reasons and for safety reasons.” The decision is good for the planet and for health.

Only visitors have to pay the special rate for SUVs. Residents should be excluded, as should traders and healthcare services. The rate should apply to combustion engine and hybrid models weighing 1.6 tonnes or more, and electric models weighing two tonnes or more. The scheme does not apply to private parking garages.

The city council received strong criticism even before the vote. The automotive club “40 million d’automobilistes” has already launched a petition against higher parking fees for heavy cars, which are planned in Lyon, Bordeaux and Grenoble in addition to Paris. “Don’t fool yourself: this war against SUVs is just a loophole to eradicate the car as a whole,” the club said.

However, the Paris approach received support from the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Fatih Birol. He called for government intervention against the growing prevalence of urban all-terrain vehicles (SUVs). “It is crucial to solve the problems they pose in terms of additional energy needs, the use of public spaces and the additional risk to pedestrians,” Birol told the “Les Échos” newspaper. States should advise customers not to buy SUVs and take regulatory measures in view of the trend towards heavy vehicles. This could take the form of higher taxes or higher parking fees.

In Paris, the fight against SUVs is part of a traffic turnaround that has been pushed for years by socialist mayor Hidalgo and the red-green city council. As “Les Échos” has calculated based on registration data, the higher parking rates affect almost 900,000 cars in the capital region of Île-de-France, approximately 16 percent of the car population. (sda/dpa)