News

Ladies and gentlemen, cut your engines.

Toronto public health officials are lobbying the city to reduce from three minutes to one minute the amount of time drivers can idle their vehicles before fines kick in.

The city's board of health is scheduled to debate the proposed crackdown today as part of a package of changes that would toughen and simplify a long-standing bylaw designed to curb smog.

"It will better protect air quality and it reduce the amount of fuel wasted," said Monica Campbell, manager of the environmental protection office of Toronto Public Health. "It has direct health benefits."

Advocates say a new one-minute rule would serve as a public education tool to raise driver awareness of what they can do for the environment.

Toronto Public Health is not proposing an increase to the current $125 ticket for excessive idling or stepped up enforcement by Toronto police or city transportation officials.

Still, critics argue a stricter idling bylaw is an ineffective annoyance.

"It's totally unreasonable," said Councillor Case Ootes (Ward 29, Toronto-Danforth). "The public is tired of all this meddling and I am not sure what it achieves."

Toronto was the first municipality in Canada to pass an anti-idling bylaw. The pre-amalgamation City of Toronto adopted it in 1996. Eva Ligeti, executive director of the Clean Air Partnership, says Toronto is now behind other jurisdictions.

"It is pretty low-lying fruit and very symbolic for residents," she said of the stricter limit.

The federal Department of Natural Resources, which recommends idling be limited to no more than 10 seconds, reports that Peel region has adopted a one-minute rule, while Waterloo region restricts its fleet vehicles to 10 seconds of idling.

The changes public health is proposing, which will go to council later this month, would also reduce the number of exemptions to the bylaw.

The current rules allow drivers to idle when temperatures inside a vehicle are hotter than 27 degrees or colder than 5 degrees, an exemption that proved difficult to enforce and would be removed from the bylaw.

As well, Toronto Transit Commission buses are exempt currently when they make stopovers of up to 15 minutes. In future, when on such scheduled stops, they would not be allowed to idle if it is just for the driver or passengers. But they would still be allowed to idle when letting passengers on or off the bus, for safety reasons or to protect emission-reduction devices from failing.

Over the past five years, city transportation officials and the police have issued between 55 and 86 anti-idling tickets a year compared to several hundred warnings handed out annually.

"We're trying to shift the practice," said Ms. Campbell, with the emphasis more on public education than penalties. Typically there is a twice-a-year blitz to alert drivers of the bylaw.

"There are a lot of people aggravated about idling, especially around schools," she said.