In a referendum on Sunday, which was closely watched by other capital cities, including London, 54.6% voted in favour of special parking fees for SUVs, according to provisional results.
“Parisians have made a clear choice … other cities will follow,” said Paris’s Socialist mayor, Anne Hidalgo, adding that road safety and air pollution were key reasons for the vote.
She said the aim was to deliberately target the richest drivers of expensive, heavy and polluting cars who had not yet made changes to their behaviour to address the climate crisis.
Emmanuel Grégoire, Paris’s deputy mayor, posted on X as voting began: “Heavier, more dangerous, more polluting … SUVs are an environmental disaster.”
Under Hidalgo, Paris has for years raised pressure on drivers by increasing parking costs and gradually banning diesel vehicles, while expanding the bicycle lane network in the congested capital.
The motorists’ lobby group 40 Millions d’Automobilistes had argued that drivers should be free to choose whatever vehicle they want, warning that the move to raise parking tariffs was unjustified and the work of “an ultra-urban and anti-car minority”.
The original article contains 540 words, the summary contains 180 words. Saved 67%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I think with votes like this, especially with the low turnout, it just shows most people don’t really care because they don’t feel directly impacted one way or another. The people that feel impacted negatively by SUVs slightly outnumber people who feel impacted negatively by increased parking prices. That’s the result.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In a referendum on Sunday, which was closely watched by other capital cities, including London, 54.6% voted in favour of special parking fees for SUVs, according to provisional results.
“Parisians have made a clear choice … other cities will follow,” said Paris’s Socialist mayor, Anne Hidalgo, adding that road safety and air pollution were key reasons for the vote.
She said the aim was to deliberately target the richest drivers of expensive, heavy and polluting cars who had not yet made changes to their behaviour to address the climate crisis.
Emmanuel Grégoire, Paris’s deputy mayor, posted on X as voting began: “Heavier, more dangerous, more polluting … SUVs are an environmental disaster.”
Under Hidalgo, Paris has for years raised pressure on drivers by increasing parking costs and gradually banning diesel vehicles, while expanding the bicycle lane network in the congested capital.
The motorists’ lobby group 40 Millions d’Automobilistes had argued that drivers should be free to choose whatever vehicle they want, warning that the move to raise parking tariffs was unjustified and the work of “an ultra-urban and anti-car minority”.
The original article contains 540 words, the summary contains 180 words. Saved 67%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
54.6% doesn’t seem like a clear choice to me.
I think with votes like this, especially with the low turnout, it just shows most people don’t really care because they don’t feel directly impacted one way or another. The people that feel impacted negatively by SUVs slightly outnumber people who feel impacted negatively by increased parking prices. That’s the result.
This law is aimed at visitors’ cars, so residents of Paris are excluded from the higher tariffs and remain unaffected.
It’s not a landslide but it’s pretty clear which side one. Now 50.1% could be a rounding error.