In Paris, fees for big SUVs triple

City in effort to help environment

PARIS — Voters here have approved an effort to drastically increase parking fees for large SUVs and other heavy cars, the latest move by Mayor Anne Hidalgo to reshape the French capital with environmentally conscious and pedestrianfriendly policies.

The new parking fees are expected to be approved in May by the Paris City Council, where Hidalgo’s Socialist Party and Green allies have a majority. The new fees are then expected to come into effect in September, Hidalgo said.

Some car owners have complained they are being shut out of the capital, but Hidalgo was unrepentant at a news conference Sunday night. “Parisians made a clear choice,” she said, adding that, “We are very proud of this result.”

Still, turnout was extremely low. Although about 54.5 percent of those who voted favored the measure, only about 5.7 percent of eligible voters went to the polls.

Although much of the public debate was focused on SUVs, the new fees will apply to all cars that weigh more than 1.6 metric tons if they have traditional combustion engines or are hybrids, or more than 2 metric tons if they are electric.

People with those vehicles will have to pay 18 euros, a little more than $19, for the first hour of public parking in central Paris, and 12 euros, about $13, in the French capital’s outer neighborhoods — triple the normal rate. For additional hours, prices rise sharply, so drivers of SUVlike vehicles will end up paying more than $240 for six hours of parking in central Paris, instead of about $80 for regular cars.

But there are several exemptions, so the measure will mostly apply to outside visitors.

Paris residents who park in their neighborhood will not be affected.

Neither will taxis or other professional vehicles, or people who use larger vehicles because of a disability.

City authorities had argued that big SUVs and other large cars emit more greenhouse gases than average cars and are more dangerous for pedestrians because of their bulkiness, citing a report that suggests pedestrians are twice as likely to be killed in a collision with an SUV than with a standard vehicle.

The referendum on parking fees was the second time in recent months that Hidalgo had sought direct popular approval for policies that are intended to make the city more appealing to pedestrians and cyclists.

In April, Parisians voted to ban rental electric scooters from the streets of the French capital, a measure that went into effect in September after complaints that they were essentially taking over the sidewalks.

As mayor since 2014, Hidalgo has pushed to make the capital less carcentric, closing off roads along some Seine River banks to motorized vehicles and significantly expanding the number of bicycle lanes.

Paris is served by a dense network of subways and buses, although the Olympic Games this summer, which are expected to attract millions of visitors, could seriously test the capital’s transportation.

City authorities had said before Sunday’s vote that although the number of car owners and cars in the capital had steadily decreased over the past decade, the average car size had increased.

The city cited a 2020 report by the World Wide Fund for Nature that said the trend toward bigger cars was threatening France’s climate goals.