- cross-posted to:
- fuckcars@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- fuckcars@lemmy.world
The measure to make vehicles weighing 1.6 tons and over pay 3x the parking rates for the first two hours has passed in Paris.
Now, let’s get that in place for London and many other other places to help slow, and even reverse, this trend towards massive personal vehicles.
Fuck cars but especially fuck SUVs
But also fuck those pickup truck monstrosities.
Aren’t those classed as SUVs? Is there a pickup truck class?
I might be wrong but most people who live and work in Paris don’t drive. They have great public transit and there’s a huge walking culture. When I was in Paris the only large vehicles I saw where taxis.
In other news: Peugeot and Renault announce 1.59 ton Urban Utility Vehicles.
All this arguing over progressive fining versus just slashing the tyres of all parked SUVs you see.
tyre extinguishers are based as fuck and they have caused a nonzero amount of people to reconsider their purchase of an SUV or to not drive their SUV downtown
So any car over 3,200lbs. my subcompact Honda Fit weighs 2300lbs. The 2024 Honda Accord weighs 3200lbs. I know eu has many more subcompact options than the US, cuz every car available here is basically an increasingly egg shaped amalgam of station wagon SUVs that weigh 4k lbs.
Yup. EVs also run into the tonnage limit quickly too. A Tesla Model 3 single engine is 1.75 tons (no extra parking costs), but the dual motor is over 2 tons.
The US has way too many vehicles that should be about 20-30% smaller and lighter for basic city driving. Even the “small” vehicles aren’t small anymore.
The SUVs in Europe are also smaller on average than the behemoths on American roads. The largest ones you will come across in France will be BMW X5 sized. And while they are large, they are utterly dwarfed by SUVs like the Suburban, Sequoia and Escalade. An Escalade vs X5 comparison here.
Indeed! It’s really hard to explain just how much smaller the traffic feels in European cities, even when there’s lots of vehicles they’re still less massive overall. I have taken video footage of traffic in a few different European cities just to show people how much smaller, quieter, and less dense rush hour traffic is. Even when comparing it to my US mid-sized city’s traffic.
It’s just nicer to be around roads with fewer and smaller cars.
TLDR: driving giant SUVs is ok as long as you’re rich.
Are you against any sort of tax for oversized vehicles? Do you also believe that congestion pricing “hurts poor people”?
Also, giant SUVs are only accessible to the rich anyways. No poor person is driving around an Audi Q8 or a Cadillac Escalade, they take the train.
When giant SUVs are only accessible to the rich anyways, then the whole premise of tripling parking fees is meaningless to begin with. And yes, I’m against the idea of trying to solve the problem using a tax because it’s a performative measure that accomplishes nothing of real value while distracting from real solutions. I believe this accomplishes about as much as carbon taxes.
The thing is, SUV prices depreciate, and people who would never be able to afford a new one can easily obtain them used. Gas prices are obviously not enough of a deterrent even to those living paycheck to paycheck. Some additional barriers to disincentivize the choice of driving the largest car they can afford is very welcome.
Again, my point is that this approach creates a two tiered system where people who can afford it get to flaunt the rules everybody else has to play by. An outright ban that applies to everyone equally is a much more fair measure.
Please show me the mythical poor people who are driving around downtown Paris in their SUVs. Please, show me one! They don’t exist! Please stop pearl clutching over the plight of the mythical poor Parisian SUV driver!
And more straw manning. Props for working hard to twist what I say to fit the argument you want to argue against champ.
You have got to be American right? The right for one to drive their big-ass SUV downtown is not something the Parisian working-class is concerned about!
Working-class Parisians are not buying and driving big-ass SUVs downtown anyways! No poor people are being harmed by this!
When giant SUVs are only accessible to the rich anyways, then the whole premise of tripling parking fees is meaningless to begin with.
Driving your car seems free because you’ve already paid for it yesterday at the pump. Expensive parking puts a real, visible price on driving that you have to confront every single day.
The rich doesn’t solely consist of Jeff Bezos and co. Most people who drive luxury SUVs cannot afford tripled parking prices in the city every day. And even if they could, this forces them to reconsider their habits and maybe take the train next time.
And yes, I’m against the idea of trying to solve the problem using a tax because it’s a performative measure that accomplishes nothing of real value while distracting from real solutions.
This is not a performative measure, this is the real solution. Driving needs to become multiple times more expensive, and a tripled parking price is a good place to start. Drivers are heavily subsidized by society and this subsidy needs to end, and these taxes are the first step in that direction.
I believe this accomplishes about as much as carbon taxes.
You can’t be fucking serious lol.
The rich doesn’t solely consist of Jeff Bezos and co. Most people who drive luxury SUVs cannot afford tripled parking prices in the city every day.
[citation needed]
This is not a performative measure, this is the real solution.
Sure, just like carbon tax.
You can’t be fucking serious lol.
I can be fucking serious, and if you genuinely think carbon taxes are accomplishing anything meaningful then what else is there to say to you.
Let’s cut to the chase: do you oppose congestion pricing?
Do you oppose congestion pricing because it “hurts the working poor” and that it’s just a “performative gesture”?
I don’t think it’s the right approach for meaningfully addressing the problem. The real solution is to invest in building public transit infrastructure, to design cities to be walkable. Congestion pricing simply creates a penalty for people without providing them with alternative. Should be pretty easy to understand why this is not a real solution.
Congestion pricing simply creates a penalty for people without providing them with alternative.
Are you seriously arguing you can’t get around Paris without a car lol?
The real solution is to invest in building public transit infrastructure, to design cities to be walkable.
We are talking about Paris here. Paris has the best public transit infrastructure in the world. Paris is highly walkable.
People who drive downtown have no excuse for their actions and must be penalized accordingly.
When London implemented congestion pricing, it significantly improved traffic and encouraged people to take transit. You are completely ignoring reality if you oppose congestion pricing on the basis of it being ineffective.
This is both not enough and better than nothing.
I’m all for taxing the rich more, it’s not ultimately my final goal but it’s something.
“Punishable by fine” is just another way of saying “it’s legal if you can afford it.”
exactly!
Poor people aren’t driving SUVs around downtown Paris in the first place. I do not weep for nonexistent people.
It’s actually incredible that you have people on fuck cars that are AGAINST raising the prices of car parking. Anything that’s done to make driving more expensive and less subsidized is anti-poor apparently. Literally indistinguishable from pro-car concern trolling.
got nothing to do with the point I was making, but you do you
Imperfect measures that improve society somewhat are actually fucking evil.
🙄
No one drives in Paris who’s not already rich, the public transportation there is great
So then SUVs should just be banned right?
Should? Yes. Big doubt anything like this would happen in the current political landscape in France