A Calgary MLA wants Alberta to follow St. Albert's lead and ban idling — an idea that's drawn support from local officials.
Calgary-Currie independent MLA Dave Taylor tabled Bill 230 in the provincial legislature this Tuesday. The bill died on the order paper with the close of the winter session, but if re-introduced and passed in the future, it would forbid people from idling their vehicles in Alberta for more than three minutes in an hour. Anyone who did so would be fined at least $100.
Idling pollutes the air and harms the health of our children, Taylor said. It's also completely unnecessary; modern engines need 30 seconds at most to warm up at any given temperature.
"The amount of vehicle idling that goes on in this country wastes a tremendous amount of fuel," he continued — about 2.2 million litres a day at the peak of winter, according to Natural Resources Canada, or enough to run 1,100 cars for a year.
St. Albert, Jasper and Hinton already have similar bylaws, Taylor said, and Nova Scotia is in the process of passing legislation. That law, the first provincial anti-idling law in Canada, was at second reading as of early December. It only applies to buses. A province-wide standard would send a message to the public that idling is unacceptable, he added.
"It's not like it's a major lifestyle change," Taylor said, noting it would bring big benefits. If Canadians idled for three minutes less each day, they would keep about 1.4 megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions out of the air each year — equivalent to taking 320,000 cars off the road.
"Pretty much every way you look at it … it's the right thing to do."
Local support
The bill, if passed, would not apply to emergency vehicles and public transit, and would cut out when the outside temperature was below - 23 C.
Taylor said he tabled his bill to start a province-wide debate about idling. "This has certainly sparked a lot of reaction." He said he's heard a fair bit of support from residents, as well as some concern about its temperature exemption. If he reintroduces the bill, he might raise the exemption to - 15 C.
St. Albert MLA Ken Allred said he had no problem with the bill's concept, but held off on supporting it as he'd yet to read it. "I don't see any point when you're sitting at a railroad crossing for 10 minutes in having your car running."
He said that he was disappointed that the bill featured a temperature exemption. "I don't think there's much excuse for letting people idle their cars for an hour when it's - 20 or - 50. You don't need to idle them that long."
St. Albert has had a similar idling bylaw in effect since 2008. It features the same fine and vehicle exemptions, but limits idling to three minutes in a half hour period and cuts out when the temperature is below freezing or above 30 C.
City municipal enforcement officers have investigated six complaints and issued zero tickets since the law came into effect, said William Norton, acting senior municipal enforcement officer. "It really is off our radar here."
Most drivers know not to idle nowadays, Norton said, and react positively to education campaigns when police do them. The city's office of the environment also holds regular idle-free promotions. He said he personally looked forward to provincial legislation, even if it required changes to the local one.
Taylor said his law's focus is education, not enforcement. "It's never been my expectation that we would arm all the police officers in the province of Alberta with stop-watches." The "modest" fine is meant to add some weight to the law's message, and to give residents a way to penalize repeat offenders.
Taylor said he hoped to reintroduce the bill in some form next session.
