Parisians voted this Sunday by a majority to tighten the driving conditions for heavier vehicles, in a referendum called by the City Council to triple the price of parking for these vehicles, which was marked by low citizen participation.
54.55% of Parisians showed themselves favorable to the proposal of the Mayor of Paris, although less than 6% of the 1.3 million voters called went to the polls.
Less than a year after pronounced against rental electric scooters, which forced the companies that offered them to leave the city last summer, the new popular consultation put heavier and larger vehicles in its sights.
Specifically, it will affect thermal or hybrid vehicles that weigh more than 1.6 tons and to electric ones that exceed 2 tons.
When the measure comes into effect, these means of transport will see the price of parking triple: up to 18 euros per hour in the most central districts of the city and 12 in the most peripheral ones. According to the municipality’s calculations, Paris will receive an additional 35 million euros for this concept.
This is a victory for the socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, that in his crusade against vehicles he had championed this measure and that he had personified it in SUVs, larger and taller utility vehicles that account for half of sales.
Hidalgo will now take this measure to the municipal plenary sessionwhich must be endorsed before it comes into force, but it seems unlikely that it will not advance after the popular support received.
The mayor had launched a campaign that focused on SUVs, although Not all of these vehicles exceed the weight set by the City Council.
But, according to data from the Mayor’s Office, They weigh 200 kilos more and measure 25 centimeters more than utility vehicles, which, together with its sales success, has increased pollution in cities while reducing space.
From the average 975 kilos that the vehicle fleet weighed in 1990, it has gone to 1,233 currentindicates the City Council.
Low involvement
Hidalgo’s victory is somewhat overshadowed by low participation. In the 38 open voting places In different parts of the city between 9:00 a.m. local time and 7:00 p.m., there was no high flow of Parisians.
The initiative has not been without controversy, because the mayor left the residents out of the obligation, which practically guaranteed her victory in the consultation, but for critics it shows that behind her is not the environmental will that she wields.
“It is not a measure against pollution, It is ecological populism”, indicated the president of the 40 million motorists association, Pierre Chasseray, to the newspaper Le Parisien.
Hidalgo, who arrived at the council with an emblematic measure under his arm, the closure to traffic on the banks of the Seinehas multiplied in recent years the pedestrianization of streets and the extension of bicycle lanes, in an assumed crusade against cars.
Initiatives that have earned him praise, which he has also obtained for this new measure against heavier vehicles.
Fatih Birolexecutive director of the International Energy Agency, an organization based in Paris, assured that the measure taken by the French capital will have a knock-on effect on other cities.
“Many cities were awaiting this consultation. “I’ve spoken to some mayors of big cities around the world and they take the problem very seriously,” he told Le Parisien.
