Bike-friendly Paris votes on raising parking fees for SUVs

Paris holds a referendum on Sunday asking Parisians whether the city should impose a parking surcharge on large SUVs, as the French capital pushes on with its multi-year plan to become a fully bikeable city.
Sunday’s referendum, which comes less than a year after city residents voted last year to ban e-scooters, aims to triple the parking fees for cars of 1.6 tonnes and more to 18 euros ($19.4) per hour, to discourage “bulky, polluting” cars, City Hall said.
The new tariff would also apply to electric cars of 2 tonnes and more.
“Heavier, more dangerous, more polluting… SUVs are an environmental disaster,” Emmanuel Gregoire, the deputy mayor of Paris said on X.
Under Socialist Mayor Anne Hidalgo, the streets of Paris have been transformed, with 84 km of cycle lanes being created since 2020 and a 71% jump in bike usage between the end of the COVID-19 lockdowns and 2023.