Jasper bans idling

Thought a few of you might find this interesting...not so good for us Diesel owners.

No exception for cold as Jasper bans idling
Gordon Kent, The Edmonton Journal
Published: Saturday, November 24

Jasper has become one of the few Alberta municipalities with an anti-idling bylaw after approving tough new rules that tightly restrict when drivers can let their motors run.

The law, which took effect Nov. 1, allows people to keep stationary cars and trucks operating only while the vehicle is working, which includes waiting at a traffic signal, defrosting the windshield, handling police or other emergencies, and doing construction jobs.

The original draft would have prevented people from idling for more than two minutes except in extreme hot and cold temperatures, but corporate and legislative services director Verne Balding said Friday the time limit would be hard to enforce. We wanted to avoid placing our bylaw officers in the position where they had to run around with a stopwatch."

Violators face a $100 fine. No tickets have been handed out, although a num-ber of warnings have been issued as staff initially focus on public education, Balding said.

The bylaw is partly a response to the community's vision of Jasper as an environmental leader, he said.

Councillors decided to act last spring after local resident Katya Gorontzy-Jouini gathered about 550 names in three weeks on a petition calling for a ban.

She has already noticed a drop in idling, although she'd like officials to crack down harder on offenders.

"It's just a habit, leaving your truck running while you run into a store. ... With these kinds of things, I don't know why there is hesitation. It's for our environment."

Gorontzy-Jouini is now pushing for similar rules to cover the rest of Jasper National Park and the trains that keep chugging as they wait on sidings.

More than 20 Ontario municipalities have idling bylaws, while other major centres such as Montreal and Vancouver use regulations on noise or nuisances to curtail the practice.

Idling is also restricted in Hinton. Last May, Edmonton city councillors rejected calls to introduce a similar bylaw, saying many residents oppose such legislation and it would be difficult to administer.

However, they're considering a $140,000 campaign in the 2008 budget aimed at convincing people to voluntarily turn off their vehicles when they aren't moving.

Lindsay Telfer from the Sierra Club of Canada said that isn't much money to try changing habits in a city as big as Edmonton.

Advertising won't have much impact unless offenders face legal consequences, said Telfer, director of the group's Prairie chapter.

"If you don't have the backstop of the bylaw, I don't think people will be paying that much attention," she said.

"People will be 'yeah, yeah, yeah,' and it will have very little effect."

I don't know, a couple of weeks ago there were three running trucks sitting outside a restaurant I eat at while the guys were in eating breakfast...it was plus 6 outside. Is that really necessary?

We always let our trucks idle while we have breakfast on our way through to McBride/Valemount; especially in Jan/Feb. Some of them Jasper folks seem to want to revert back in time to the days of Jeremiah Johnson. Whatever, I guess it's their town....

I notice in the winter RCMP cars will be idling in parking lots while they are having their breaks/lunch/etc would this bylaw be exempt to them? Or do they also have to fall in line? I would hope they have to otherwise that would be a load of BS.

According to the Mayor, who was on the radio, all vehicles including city are under the same rulings. Of course medical, fire and police will be exempt while on scene.

Dennis-NADP said:

I notice in the winter RCMP cars will be idling in parking lots while they are having their breaks/lunch/etc would this bylaw be exempt to them? Or do they also have to fall in line? I would hope they have to otherwise that would be a load of BS.

Click to expand...

This is my home town and this all came about from one crazy lady that yelled at all the parents when picking up there kids in the school zones to shut off there cars. Well it snowballed and now here we are. The rule of thumb is 15min for a diesel and I think 10 min for gas. This is not for the early morning cold starts but more so the people who are always running in and out of stores and leaving cars running after they are up to operating temps... I love our enviroment as much as the next guy but also hate gettin up at 6am to a ice cold truck...no tickets yet and when I see the by law guys I smile and wave as we both leave our trucks running as we get our coffee in the am...lol

Shifty

PS come to my house for breakfast next time and I will let you run your trucks in my driveway...lol

For Jasper, this is not new. One of our charter buses was fined $100 last winter at the hockey arena for idling unattended. I was told that if the driver would have been with the bus the fine would not have been written up (the driver was watching the little guys play). I found out about the ticket when I recieved a letter (registered mail) that Jasper was going to take us to court if we did not pay the overdue ticket. Lets say that I am going to assume that my drivers dog ate the ticket before it could be delivered to me and that the driver forgot to mention it to me.

Hinton also has a similar by-law but is wishy-washy on temperature; basically left to the by-law inforcement officer to decide if it is cold enough to require extended idling. We got a warning ticket for idling at -12C.

I have been to or through Hinton and Jasper dozens of times since the fine and warning. No-where do I see a sign that says these by-laws exist.

IMHO, education is far more effective than penalities. Penalties are for those that refuse the education, and penalties should be escalated until the education is achieved.

If this was really an enviromental issue at heart there would be signage or other notification other than an newspaper artical in a paper that a minority of Albertans read and almost no one in neighboring BC would read. So, it seems to me to be something other than enviromental... perhaps money??? Why else have obscure bylaws without adaquate notification? I believe the courts have already spoken on this issue in reguards to photo radar.

That'll be my rant of the day.