Everywhere we should start changing parking charges to "by the foot". The longer your car is the more you need to pay. That will incentivize smaller, safer cars for people that don't really have any need for something big.
While still punishing larger families that absolutely need the space. I'm not against the concept generally speaking but we need to consider those kinds of ramifications. Low income families can be large too, afterall. Not even talking about with kids - many families have the grandparents/cousins/etc. around as well.
people had larger families in the era where cars were smaller. no one needs an SUV in a city, they're meant for hauling firewood to the remote cabin where there's no paved roads
Cars are not the only way to move people around. They are, however, the worst way to move people around. Take a bus and/or train, and you’ll never have to worry about parking again.
In response, more and more of our streets can be reclaimed for pedestrians spaces, adding walking/biking paths, adding greenery, adding outdoor patios, etc, instead of it all just going to ever increasingly large and crowded parking spaces and One More Lane™
Human overpopulation is the biggest cause of anthropogenic climate change, and the root cause of almost all existential and major ethical problems facing us.
Yes, I understand, but a flat fee regardless of size of car as it now, is effectively a subsidy directly toward the development of car dependent cities. Also families don't tend to travel downtown by car on weekdays where space is a premium, those are usually single drivers going to work and often in NA, those lone drivers are often in large pickups and SUVs.
Large families taking the train have to pay roughly proportionally to the size, which is one of many reasons why many families opt for car culture. It's not those fault the options are this way but my point is that it can be changed.
The only place on the world where low income families have big trucks is the
US because of debt and extremely car dependent infrastructure. French poor families use public transit.
Honestly, get a car and then add a roof rack instead of an SUV
You have the space you need, it's cheaper than an SUV, it's more fuel efficient, and you can take it off and not have to transport all the extra weight when it is not necessary
Here in Italy the FIAT 500 was the first "family car" and was less than 3 meters long, the FIAT 500 Giardiniera was the station wagon version and it was 3.1 meters long. If you look at an old 500 now, you'd wonder how would a human fit inside.
Today's average SUV is over 4 meters long, with some going over 5 meters. In Japan there are Kei cars used as trucks, people movers, vans etc. The fact that you need a Jeep compass to be able to pick up your kid from school is absurd
I need the length in my car right now. I’d rather charge by weight. I like sedans (currently in a wagon). What I’d like to get rid of is big trucks for no reason
But the cost of constructing parking infrastructure is more directly related to square meters than weight (in HCOL areas especially). Sure more weight means beefier structures and/or pavement are needed, but that tends to average over an area vs a large object requiring a larger investment regardless of whether it’s light or not.
I've started to ask myself this more and more. Why is on street free parking (or even metered, but in a crowded core area) a value choice we make in our cities?
I'm still chewing on the concept, but once I considered challenging that status quo, it opened a lot of new approaches to what is considered a right vs exploiting the common city resources for individual use.
Green activists in Paris are making a final push to win a landmark vote tripling parking charges for SUVs in a move aimed at tackling air pollution that is being closely watched by other cities such as London.
In final campaigning before Sunday’s vote, the socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, canvassed parents outside a primary school in the 10th arrondissement near the Gare du Nord, where pollution from large boulevards, traffic on small backstreets and a lack of green space had led many residents to call for fewer cars.
An Opinionway poll for Le Parisien this month found that 61% of Paris residents backed raising parking charges for SUVs.
Lucie, 39, a caterer dropping her nine-year-old to school, said: “I get so angry seeing people sitting alone in their big SUVs in traffic in the morning; it just doesn’t make sense.
Diane, a stylist, who travels by electric bike with her two children aged seven and two, said: “I’m voting to send a message that we don’t want cars in general: for air quality, noise, for the climate and even for the overall mood of the city.
Before Paris, Lyon – France’s third biggest city, which is run by the Greens – devised a progressive parking tariff system to incentivise people away from the use of heavy sports vehicles.
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