Paris May Ban SUVs From City Streets
Parisian officials have determined that SUVs are no longer in vogue. The left-leaning city council yesterday passed a resolution that urges the capital’s Socialist mayor, Bertrand Delanoe, to effectively ban the bulky four-wheel-drive vehicles from the city center during peak pollution times and deny their owners parking permits starting in 18 months. SUVs have become more popular in Western Europe in recent years, though they still account for less than 5 percent of the French car market, markedly below SUV sales numbers in the U.S. Paris has been dedicating more street lanes to bicycles and buses since a coalition of Socialists and Greens gained control of the city government in 2001, and an SUV ban would be yet another move to green the city’s streets. London’s leftist mayor, Ken Livingstone, is also no fan of SUVs; last month, he called their owners “complete idiots.”
