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Parisians vote in favour of tripling parking costs for SUVs

theguardian.com

91–100 of 202 posts

Re: Parisians vote in favour of tripling parking costs for SUVs

#91
post #3

It makes sense that road and parking pricing should be proportional to the size and impact of your car. Hopefully this will encourage manufacturers to produce more smaller cars - it's getting somewhat hard to buy a small car these days. I'd love to have a Japanese-style Kei car.

You'd think that the country which invented the 2CV and went for full-nuclear electricity generation to save oil imports would have plenty of good small EV options.

Re: Parisians vote in favour of tripling parking costs for SUVs

#92
post #71
post #59

Interesting to note: the turnout (5.6%) is even lower than when it was decided to ban e-scooters sharing systems (7.4%). Also note this only applies to vehicles from non-residents. And that parking in public spots is already very expensive in Paris; limited to a maximum of 6h, which will cost you up to 75€: https://www.paris.fr/pages/payer-son-stationnement-2129

> the turnout (5.6%) is even lower than when it was decided to ban electric scooters public sharing (7.4%). These things should really have a quorum requirement.

OTOH, perhaps 95% don't care either way. Setting a minimum turn-out is a way to kill all referendums. It's only a "good" idea when you're in power.

Re: Parisians vote in favour of tripling parking costs for SUVs

#93
post #84
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the turnout (5.6%) is even lower than when it was decided to ban electric scooters public sharing (7.4%). These things should really have a quorum requirement.

Most eligible voters are probably not personally affected and so didn't see a need vote. A quorum would make it effectively impossible to change anything.

The current system makes it possible for a very small portion of the population to change things for everyone. I'm not sure that's better.

Re: Parisians vote in favour of tripling parking costs for SUVs

#94
Conspiracy theorists or cynics might claim it's not just about pollution and parking spots. Such initiatives could coincidentally align with the interests of French automotive industry.

As of now, France is importing more cars than it is exporting, and its traditional main rival - Germany - happens to be doing particularly well in the SUV sector.

Just a few months ago a French MEP called for introducing a special driver license for SUVs; German MEPs would want nothing of it, even the German Green Party opposed, dismissing the initiative as "nonsense".

So when "citing a 60% increase in SUV ownership over the last four years, Parisian officials say SUVs are ridiculous, dangerous, and needlessly polluting", it would be interesting to break down where these ridiculous SUVs are coming from, in order to dispel such suspicions.

Re: Parisians vote in favour of tripling parking costs for SUVs

#95

The reality is that people like their SUVs. It doesn’t matter where in the world, SUVs are popular and growing in market share. Here’s the International Energy Agency on SUVs. https://www.iea.org/commentaries/as-their-sales-continue-to-...

SUVs are a lot bigger than typical European cars. Since people don't feel safe driving small cars around big cars the presence of SUVs causes an upwards pressure on vehicle size. That's an issue in cities where the roads and parking spaces are built to fit vehicles from 20 years ago, causing a lot of frustration for everyone. Which creates the paradox that SUVs both cause people to dislike them and to buy them, for r…

It's not that simple. There are SUV-like cars in all sizes now, starting with small cars like Suzuki Jimny, and you can find a model within each 5cm band up to 5m+. Where do you draw a line? Each of these could be called a SUV by a typical voter, with increased height and ground clearance, larger wheels, in many cases 4x4. There are also sedans and station wagons with increased height and some offroad protection and styling.

My point is it's very hard nowadays to say what's a SUV. According to the article, French authorities decided purely on weight, which is only semi-related to SUV-ness of a vehicle and might include non-SUV cars, especially with heavy diesel engines, but exclude my petrol Honda CR-V 3rd gen. Why didn't they call it "triple cost for heavier vehicles" instead?

Re: Parisians vote in favour of tripling parking costs for SUVs

#96
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tiny EVs are going to be very popular in europe

EVs in Europe and the US are on the downward trend at the moment. I’m not entirely sure why, maybe they are still too expensive.

In the EU current short-term trends don't matter that much as long as the scheduled fleet emmision rules will come into force as is the current regulation.

That means from 1.1.2025, for passenger cars 93,6 g CO2/km average (which is impossible with ICE-only cars of current sizes and technology) and the manufacturer pays a fine for anything above that. But that can be relaxed if they sell at least 25% EVs (0 g CO2/km), and higher percentage of those means higher permissible average emmisions. So the manufacturers will be highly motivated to sell more EVs and we can expect all the big manufacturers will hit the 25% quite soon.

Then from 1.1.2030 this goes down to 49,5 g CO2/km and at that point ICEs are goint to be increasingly niche. From 1.1.2035 the limit is 0 g CO2/km.

Re: Parisians vote in favour of tripling parking costs for SUVs

#97
post #51

Should be added that this is for SUVs coming from outside of Paris and doesn't affect residents. Positive development nonetheless.

Let's have a vote of only the residents about an issue that only affects the non-residents...

> only affects the non-residents

The status-quo (all you can eat SUV use in cities) has a big impact on everyone using the city. Yet no one voted for that...

Re: Parisians vote in favour of tripling parking costs for SUVs

#98
post #14

Actually they voted for tripling the cost of heavy vehicles. The size is not even mentioned. It's a shortsighted move, since it incentives using gasoline cars in cities and disincentivies Hybrid and even EVs due to their weight. There is nothing in the rules specific to SUVs.

Actually only EVs above 2 Metric Tons are concerned, which is fair IMO.

It's fair only to young people without kids. The Model 3 barely manages to be below that limit and it might work with kids (although no doubt the Y is better for that). But it is difficult to use for old people because it is so low that getting in and out is not easy and making it less low will make it less efficient and require adding a larger battery - making it heavier.

Re: Parisians vote in favour of tripling parking costs for SUVs

#99
post #51

Should be added that this is for SUVs coming from outside of Paris and doesn't affect residents. Positive development nonetheless.

Yes and no. Residents aren't affected if they are parking in their "authorized parking zone" but they are elsewhere, so unless their only Paris parking is in their neighborhood, they'll be affected by the change.

Re: Parisians vote in favour of tripling parking costs for SUVs

#100
post #51

Should be added that this is for SUVs coming from outside of Paris and doesn't affect residents. Positive development nonetheless.

Let's have a vote of only the residents about an issue that only affects the non-residents...

Of course a city's residents are the ones who should vote! Cities are built for us, who live in them, therefore we're the ones who get to decide how they are managed. It's the same reason that municipal elections are only open to residents of a city and national elections are only open to a country's citizens.
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