Paris to charge SUV drivers higher parking fees to tackle ‘auto-besity’

[bnew]

Paris to charge SUV drivers higher parking fees to tackle ‘auto-besity’

Size, weight and motor will be taken into account as councillors target ‘dangerous, cumbersome’ vehicles

www.theguardian.com

Paris to charge SUV drivers higher parking fees to tackle ‘auto-besity’​

Size, weight and motor will be taken into account as councillors target ‘dangerous, cumbersome’ vehicles

Kim Willsher in Paris
Tue 11 Jul 2023 10.32 EDT

Officials say the number of SUVs in the city has increased by 60% over the last four years. Photograph: Shui Ta Shan/Alamy


Paris city hall is to impose higher parking fees on owners of SUVs in its battle to reduce pollution in the capital.

Details of the charges have not been announced but the size, weight of the vehicle and its motor will be taken into consideration.


Electric vehicles and those with large families requiring a bigger car are expected to escape the increased fees that will come into effect on 1 January 2024.

Paris councillors approved the measure in an unanimous vote last month. Frédéric Badina-Serpette, a councillor from the EELV ecology party that proposed the increased charges, said: “We would like the city of Paris to change the pricing of paid parking to make it progressive according to the weight and size of vehicles.”

He said the aim was “to focus on an absurdity: auto-besity … the inexorable growth in the weight and size of vehicles circulating in our cities, and particularly in Paris”.

Officials say the number of SUVs in the city has increased by 60% over the last four years and they now make up 15% of the 1.15m private vehicles parked in Paris every evening. They hope raising fees will put a brake on the increase and encourage the ownership of lighter vehicles.

“From 1 January 2024, SUV owners can expect to pay higher fees to park in the French capital,” the council said in a statement.

David Belliard, a deputy mayor responsible for public space and mobility policy, said SUVs were incongruous in an urban environment.

“There are no dirt paths , no mountain roads … SUVs are absolutely useless in Paris. Worse, they are dangerous, cumbersome and use too many resources to manufacture,” Belliard said.

However, Pierre Chasseray, a spokesperson for the driver defence group 40 millions d’Automobilistes, said the number of SUVs had risen because larger families were buying them to replace their people carriers.

“They are family vehicles … used for going away at weekends or on holiday. We’re pandering to a tiny minority of the very urban population who have decided to make the SUV the symbol of the battle against pollution,” Chasseray told Le Parisien.

In Lyon, the authorities have also announced higher parking charges based on vehicle weight from next year. Grenoble is expected to introduce a similar scheme.

 

[bnew]

French Revolution: Cyclists Now Outnumber Motorists In Paris

Official measurements have found that Paris is rapidly becoming a city of cyclists.

www.forbes.com

French Revolution: Cyclists Now Outnumber Motorists In Paris​

Carlton Reid

Senior Contributor

I have been writing about transport for 30 years.

French Revolution: Cyclists Now Outnumber Motorists In Paris

Apr 6, 2024,10:06am EDT

Parisians rides their bicycles near the Eiffel Tower. (Photo by Chesnot/Getty Images)
GETTY IMAGES

Official measurements have found that Paris is rapidly becoming a city of transportation cyclists. The survey of how people now move in Paris was conducted with GPS trackers by academics from L’Institut Paris Région, the largest urban planning and environmental agency in Europe.

The institute’s transportation report was published on April 4. It found that the way Parisians are now traveling from the suburbs to the city center, especially during peak periods, has undergone a revolution thanks in part to the building of many miles of cycleways.

Those cyclists now on the streets and roads of central Paris are not Spandex-clad professionals as seen on the Tour de France but everyday transportation cyclists.

L’Institut Paris Région carried out the survey for a consortium of fourteen public and private partners, including local government and rail companies.

Reporting on the institute’s survey, French TV channel 20 Minutes told viewers that the “capital’s cycle paths are always full.”

Between October 2022 and April 2023, 3,337 Parisians aged 16 to 80 years old were equipped with GPS trackers to record their journeys for seven consecutive days. In the suburbs, where public transit is less dense, transport by car was found to be the main form of mobility. But for journeys from the outskirts of Paris to the center, the number of cyclists now far exceeds the number of motorists, a huge change from just five years ago. Most of the journeys recorded were commuter trips.

The city’s socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo has pushed through a great many anti-motoring measures during her two administrations—such as reducing the number of parking places, restricting access by SUVs, and closing some major roads to motorists—and the latest survey will be validation for her policies, none of which have caused the kind of protests that the French capital has long been famous for.

In short, culling cars has been far more popular than her petrolhead critics predicted, with Paris becoming cleaner and healthier to boot.

Notably, and without the spread of conspiracy theories common outside of France, Paris is also putting into practice the home-grown concept of the “15-minute city,” creating urban areas where access to amenities is close and hence there’s less need to drive.

 

[3rdWorld]

fukk France

 

[Umoja]

Good. That American shyte should stay on the other side of the sea.

 

[CashmereThoughts]

Americas obsession with 5000 pound vehicles, 1800 calorie meals and 20 ounce sugar laced coffees

 

[Belize King]

Parisians trying to stunt on the peasants with their BIG Body foreigns.

You might see 1 out of 10000 big bodied vehicle out here in Okinawa. Japanese don’t play that.

 

[International Playa]

Huge cars should be banned in European countries, narrow roads, they are a nightmare to park

 

[the elastic]

 

[WaveCapsByOscorp™]

Truth is, unless you’re doing some sort of work that involves having a vehicle THAT big or you have a family that’s really big in number, there’s no reason for you to have a big car in Paris.

First off, there’s already so much traffic; from the already existing motorists to bikers, scooters, pedestrians. Second, the streets are smaller because a good amount of them were made before the automobile existed. Third, because there’s enough modes of transportation in that dense city that owning a large car for no reason just puts another big vehicle without much purpose in the mix.

 

[jay83]

Drive an f-250 in a Paris alley Brehs.

 

[Amestafuu (Emeritus)]

Parisians trying to stunt on the peasants with their BIG Body foreigns.

You might see 1 out of 10000 big bodied vehicle out here in Okinawa. Japanese don’t play that.

That's good. I rarely see people with big suv and truck have a full car. Might be hard for some people to hear but it's selfish to drive a car that big alone on the regular.

 

[Sir Richard Spirit]

Denali HD 2500>

 

[The BasedFather]

Bunch of pussies! Can’t take my big trucks and guns away! The murica way damnit!

 

[IsThatBrothaMouzone?]

I see tons of young white soccer moms with 2 kids but driving some big azz Yukon Denali-type ride.

Seen 4'10" Mexican broads parallel parking a Ford F-350 but can barely get in or out of it.

Black people and older white men are the last of Team Sedan.

 

[Hagendas]

Good. That American shyte should stay on the other side of the sea.

Exactly them idiots in the suvs can barely drive as well staying in the middle lane doing under the speed limit and don’t ever me started on how they ‘park’