PARIS (AP) — Parisians were voting Sunday whether 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.
Hidalgo is looking for voters’ backing for a proposal to triple parking fees for SUV drivers from out of town.
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.