A Melbourne council has passed an Australian-first motion to investigate clamping down on large vehicles by hiking up parking fees.
The Yarra city council unanimously voted on Tuesday to investigate the potential to raise parking fees for large vehicles. The council could follow Paris, after the French city voted to triple parking costs for SUVs in February.
In Australia, SUVs have soared in popularity, prompting concerns about their environmental and safety impacts.
Experts have previously pointed to manufacturers doubling their spend on advertising SUVs and utes over the past decade, and various tax perks such as the instant asset write-off scheme, as factors that have been nudging Australians towards larger vehicles in recent years.
What is being proposed in Melbourne?
Last year, not a single sedan or hatchback ranked in the top 10 most bought cars in Australia – setting an all-time record for new car sales.
The top three most sold cars in Australia last year were utes, with the next seven most popular new cars all SUVs, according to new data from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries.
The inner-suburban Yarra city council voted on Tuesday to investigate whether parking fees should be increased for larger vehicles such as SUVs and trucks due to safety concerns. Councillors backed the motion, which also suggested imposing proportional parking fees based on the size of vehicles
A report investigating larger vehicles and potential increases in parking fees will be prepared for councillors later in 2024.
The motion excludes penalties for electric vehicles that are heavy due to carrying onboard batteries, and large vehicles used by people with a disability.
Greens MP Tim Read has urged the Victorian government to follow the council’s lead.
How would it work?
It remains unclear how the policy would work if implemented.
Urban planner Dr David Mepham says one option would be to create separate parking spaces for larger vehicles.
“They would have to pay extra for that access. It might be an off-street parking area – that’s probably the most appropriate solution,” he says.
Mepham, the author of Rethinking Parking: Planning and Urban Design Perspectives, says that when parking metres are due for renewal, they could also be redesigned to charge drivers based on their vehicle size. Other options could include number-plate recognition technology.
Standards Australia last year proposed increasing the required length in off-street lots by 20cm to accommodate SUVs and large cars. Mepham says such a proposal is inappropriate and will lead to a loss of car parking spaces.
Where else is this being considered?
Paris held a referendum last month about whether owners of big cars should pay more to park them.
Parisians voted to triple parking costs for SUVs and other heavy vehicles, as the city aims to tackle air pollution and reclaim parts of the city from traffic. The proposal was objected to by motoring groups and passed with a narrow margin – 55% – with a low turnout of just 5% of the city. Environmental groups hailed it as a template for other cities to make streets safer and air cleaner as sales of heavy vehicles soar.
The new parking tariffs could come into force at the start of September. The cost of on-street parking for an SUV or 4x4 car would rise to €18 ($30) an hour in the centre of Paris and €12 ($20) an hour in the rest of the city.
The prices will apply to vehicles weighing more than 1.6 tonnes with a combustion engine or hybrid vehicles, and more than 2 tonnes for electric vehicles. The move will not apply to Paris residents’ parking.
Paris’s deputy mayor in charge of transport, David Belliard, of the Green party, said about 10% of vehicles in Paris would be hit by the higher parking fees, which could bring in up to €35m for the city each year.
A similar initiative is already in place in the French city of Lyon, while the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said prior to the vote that he would monitor the effectiveness of Paris’s plan if it was approved. The association of German cities has also come out in favour of such a scheme.
Mepham says cities across the world are facing the issue of space constraints due to larger vehicles.
“Space is at a much higher premium,” he says. “This is not a special problem for Melbourne by any means. This is a problem everywhere.”
What else are councils doing to crack down on SUVs?
In 2008, the City of Sydney introduced “green concessions” for residential parking permits in the council area to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The scaled annual permit fee provides a lower fee for cleaner vehicles, based on the star rating of vehicles in the federal government’s green vehicle guide.
In New South Wales, car registration fees are also taxed based on the weight of cars.
