BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) has applied for higher parking fees and parking restrictions for SUVs in further cities. Applications had already been submitted in 150 cities in June, whereupon thousands of further requests were received by DUH, as the organization announced. In the meantime, the number of applications has risen to 324. The environmental organization wants to get cities to take tougher action against heavy off-road vehicles.

According to the DUH, residents' parking fees should be increased to at least 360 euros per year, and there should be a price scale depending on the size of the vehicle. Deutsche Umwelthilfe is aiming for much stricter limits on parking. In the meantime, more than 21,000 people have asked DUH to submit applications in their cities, it said. There have already been "initial successes": the cities of Aachen and Koblenz have announced "an increase in fees for residents' parking permits depending on the size of the vehicle", DUH announced.

Paris as a role model

The city of Paris is the role model for these efforts. In a public consultation in February this year, a majority there voted in favor of tripling the parking fees for this type of vehicle. Following the Paris decision, the DUH also called on German citizens online to take action against what it described as "oversized" SUVs. 19,000 people took part in the campaign and asked Umwelthilfe to submit the relevant applications to the cities on their behalf.

The DUH emphasizes that it does not generally consider family cars such as vans to be SUVs. But here, too, there has been a trend for many years "for cars of every vehicle class to become ever larger and heavier", the organization complains./axr/DP/zb