Parisians vote to hit SUVs with eye-popping parking costs

— Parisians voted Sunday to muscle SUVs off the French capital’s streets by making them much more expensive to park, the latest leg in a drive by Socialist Mayor Anne Hidalgo to make the host city for this year’s Olympic Games greener and friendlier for pedestrians and cyclists.

More than 54 percent of the votes cast in the low-turnout election supported the measure to triple parking fees for large SUV drivers from out of town to 18 euros ($19.50) per hour in the city’s center, according to French media reports. Only 5.7 percent of the 1.3 million eligible voters cast ballots at the 39 voting stations around the city, the newspaper Le Monde said.

In get-out-the-vote posts on social media, Hidalgo argued that SUVs take up too much space on narrow Parisian streets, are too polluting and “threaten our health and our planet,” and cause more traffic accidents than smaller cars.

“The time has come to break with this tendency for cars that are always bigger, taller, wider,” she said. “You have the power to take back ownership of our streets.”

The cost for non-residents to park SUVs in Paris’ central districts, in the arrondissements numbered 1 through 11, would soar to 18 euros ($19.5) per hour for the first two hours, compared to 6 euros per hour for smaller cars.

After that, parking would become increasingly punitive. A six-hour stay with an SUV — enough, say, to take in a show and a restaurant — would cost a whopping 225 euros ($243), compared to 75 euros for smaller vehicles.

Away from the heart of the city, in Paris’ outer arrondissements numbered 12 through 20, an outof-town SUV driver would pay 12 euros per hour for the first two hours, progressively rising to 150 euros for six hours.