Update February 5, 2024: The people of Paris voted to triple parking fees for SUVs. Of the 1,374,532 eligible voters, only 78,121 actually cast their vote. Of these, 42,415 (54.55 percent) voted yes and 35,340 (45.45 percent) voted no. 366 ballot papers were invalid.
This means that drivers of a normal car (including plug-in hybrid) or SUV that weighs more than 1.6 tons and drivers of an electric car that weighs more than 2 tons will pay significantly higher parking fees from September 1, 2024. Parking for 1 hour costs 18 euros instead of 6 euros. And for 6 hours 225 euros instead of 75 euros in the inner districts. In the outskirts, parking fees are also tripled, but at a lower level overall. All parking fees can be found below. Private parking garages are exempt from the fee increase.
Residents and local businesses and some other groups are exempt from the new parking fees.
4,000 Porsches, Lamborghinis, Bentleys, Audis and VWs sank in the sea – the long-term consequences
Original message from January 22nd, 2024: German Environmental Aid is calling for higher parking fees for monster SUVs
Cars are becoming longer, wider and, more recently, higher. The first VW Golf generation, for example, was 3.8 meters long. The current VW Golf is almost 4.3 meters long and even the current VW Polo, which is below the Golf in terms of class, is significantly longer than the first Golf at 4.05 meters. This development can be transferred to most other cars; even the Smart and, with the last model change, the Toyota Aygo have grown significantly over the years.
Accordingly, modern cars require more space, and space is particularly limited in older underground garages and parking garages. An underground car park whose parking spaces were generously designed for a slim VW Beetle in the 1950s will only provide very limited parking space in 2024, even for vehicles in the current compact class. It is primarily the larger SUV class that not only takes up a lot of parking space, but also appears particularly frightening to other road users.
According to German Environmental Aid (DUH), newly registered cars in Europe have become an average of 10 cm wider over the last 20 years. Germany is the front runner: In no other European country are new cars wider, as the DUH writes. The DUH relies on this study.
Average width of new cars in the EU and UK.
(Illustration: Flourish team)
ICCT pocketbook
German Environmental Aid is now targeting “monster” SUVs (the name chosen by the DUH). The DUV is demanding higher parking fees for particularly large SUVs from all German cities. The DUH cites the French capital Paris as a role model. A referendum will take place there at the beginning of February 2024 on tripling parking fees for particularly huge SUVs. According to DUH, current surveys predict approval of almost 60 percent for this increase. The DUH is also using Tübingen as a model, where a resident parking permit for particularly large cars costs half as much as the standard fee.
