2023-11-27 08:45:57
It will be an unusual referendum when the residents of Paris vote next year on the future of a controversial type of car: the SUV. On February 4th, Mayor Anne Hidalgo called on voters to decide on “more or less SUVs in Paris”.
The question is cleverly chosen and Hidalgo’s position is clear: “With this vote, we want to put a stop to the undesirable developments of car designers who are pushing to buy ever larger, more expensive, raw material-intensive and polluting products,” she said in her video announcement on X.
The socialist Hidalgo thus captures the tone of current transport policy in many major European cities. Derived from the EU’s climate goals and the “Green Deal”, politicians at all levels are working to displace cars from the city center.
In Germany there is a demand to put more smaller vehicle models on the road instead of the many SUVs. Before the “car summit” in the Federal Chancellery, the “Alliance for Socially Acceptable Mobility Transition” called on the industry to provide “affordable and resource-saving e-vehicles” that were currently missing on the market. This alliance includes environmental associations, trade unions and the Protestant church.
Here you will find content from Twitter
In order to display embedded content, your revocable consent to the transmission and processing of personal data is necessary, as the providers of the embedded content require this consent as third party providers [In diesem Zusammenhang können auch Nutzungsprofile (u.a. auf Basis von Cookie-IDs) gebildet und angereichert werden, auch außerhalb des EWR]. By setting the switch to “on”, you agree to this (revocable at any time). This also includes your consent to the transfer of certain personal data to third countries, including the USA, in accordance with Art. 49 (1) (a) GDPR. You can find more information about this. You can revoke your consent at any time using the switch and privacy at the bottom of the page.
Mobility in the city center is also an issue at EU level. “In cities it is no longer just about the fact that we need clean transport. We need less car traffic. “The space in the city needs to be redistributed – and SUVs need too much space,” says Maria Tsavachidis, head of the Urban Mobility Initiative of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), which runs projects and networks in cities on behalf of the EU promotes.
also read
In order to prevent cities from overheating, more and more space is needed, she says: “To do this, we have to unseal areas and reduce road space. So there will be less space for mobility.”
The industry and many drivers see it differently. This is shown not least by the registration figures for SUVs in Germany and Europe. Large cars are by far the most popular vehicle category among customers. Across Europe, every second new car sold was an SUV; in Germany the proportion was just under 30 percent.
More about electromobility
Expansion of the charging infrastructure Game changer in climate protection?
The triumph of SUVs is likely to accelerate even further with the switch to electric cars. Many battery vehicles fall into this category because they are heavy and large, such as Tesla’s Model Y, the best-selling electric car in Europe.
The fact that Volkswagen has great hope for the chunky ID.4 is certainly due to the success of the Tiguan SUV, by far the best-selling model in recent years.
This market development contradicts the policies of many mayors. Regardless of the SUV vote, Hidalgo wants to introduce a speed limit of 50 kilometers per hour on the Paris Périphérique ring motorway from next September. In addition, coaches are to be banned from the center and 60,000 parking spaces are to be abolished.
Electric car testing
Porsche, Tesla, Land Rover
Hidalgo can afford such restrictive anti-car policies because the city government is determined only by the citizens in the city center. The greater Paris area, which is mainly home to commuters, has its own political representation.
The SUV ban should not affect the residents of the city center at all. In detail, Hidalgo’s plan envisages drastically increasing parking fees for SUVs that come into Paris from outside. For now, nothing will change for residents.
From Tsavachidis’ perspective, this is going in the right direction. “In Paris and Barcelona, the mayors introduced changes such as expanding cycle paths, even against the resistance of many people. Anne Hidalgo was re-elected anyway,” she says.
Tübingen grades resident parking permits based on car weight
Other municipalities are even more radical than Paris when it comes to banning SUVs. Tübingen in Baden-Württemberg, for example. Under Mayor Boris Palmer, then still a member of the Green Party, the annual fee for a resident parking permit for cars weighing more than 1.8 tons was increased to 180 euros per year. Electric cars with an unladen weight of two tonnes or more have to pay the higher fee. For lighter cars, 120 euros per year are due.
Starting next year, the city of Lyon in France will also introduce a similar regulation. The heaviest vehicles have to pay 540 euros a year for parking there, which affects five percent of car owners, according to the city. For cars that weigh less than a ton and electric cars weighing less than 2.2 tons, there is a reduced tariff of 180 euros.
Drivers in Berlin are likely to continue to be spared from such prices. So far, a resident parking permit in the capital costs 20.40 euros for two years.
also read
According to the plans of the red-green-red government, which has now been voted out, this amount should increase to 120 euros per year. Now the new transport senator Manja Schreiner (CDU) is pushing for a more car-friendly policy. The issue was being addressed, she said at the beginning of November: “It definitely won’t be 120.”
At the beginning of her term in office in April, Schreiner re-examined all planned bicycle path projects in the city – also in order to slow down the further loss of parking spaces. The senator wants to extend the city highway and push ahead with subway construction at the same time.
also read
“We need all means of transport for future mobility,” says EU expert Tsavachidis. “We have been thinking too much in silos in the transport sector, i.e. limited to individual modes of transport. Instead we should look more at people.”
The major German cities are still heavily influenced by cars, but their development is no worse than other European cities. “In Europe, more than 100 cities should be climate neutral by 2030,” says Tsavachidis. “No city has achieved this yet.”
Here you will find content from third parties
In order to display embedded content, your revocable consent to the transmission and processing of personal data is necessary, as the providers of the embedded content require this consent as third party providers [In diesem Zusammenhang können auch Nutzungsprofile (u.a. auf Basis von Cookie-IDs) gebildet und angereichert werden, auch außerhalb des EWR]. By setting the switch to “on”, you agree to this (revocable at any time). This also includes your consent to the transfer of certain personal data to third countries, including the USA, in accordance with Art. 49 (1) (a) GDPR. You can find more information about this. You can revoke your consent at any time using the switch and privacy at the bottom of the page.
#SUVs #space #Paris #battle #vote