By Doug Hallett
Guelph Tribune

City staff are recommending that the maximum time vehicles can legally idle inside city limits be cut to three minutes from the current 10.
And they want city buses to lose their exemption to the idling bylaw, which would leave police vehicles as the only ones with a blanket exemption to the city’s 13-year-old idling bylaw. Police vehicles “don’t fall under the purview” of the city’s fleet services operation, as police are governed by a police board, explained Doug Godfrey, the city’s manager of bylaw compliance and security.
Although city buses are currently exempt from the idling bylaw, they are supposed to comply with the “green fleet” policies adopted by city hall in early 2010, Godfrey said. These policies restrict idling of city-owned vehicles to 30 seconds, unless the vehicle is being used as a mobile workstation – such as a fire department command centre.
The current idling-bylaw exemption for city buses at stopovers is inconsistent with the green fleet policies, so Godfrey has recommended that the exemption end.
Meanwhile, inter-city buses would be subject to the new three-minute limit, if the change is approved by council, he said.
Guelph Transit officials “have indicated there would be no impact to their operation” resulting from the end of the idling bylaw exemption for buses, Godfrey said in an interview Friday.
The idling bylaw “was created to control carbon monoxide emissions generated from idling vehicles in an effort to protect public health and the environment,” says a new staff report.
It says the city’s current limit on idling is “significantly higher than that allowed by most other municipalities.”
The proposed change to the idling bylaw would disallow idling for more than three consecutive minutes, down from 10 minutes.
It would keep the limit for idling within any 60-minute period at 10 minutes.
In November, city hall asked for public comment on the proposed change in the idling limit to three minutes.
“Only” 51 replies were received, and 29 of them were against a change to three minutes, says the new staff report, which went to council’s operations and transit committee after the Tribune’s deadline Monday.
Despite this input, staff have recommended the change to a three-minute limit.
Enforcement staff would “use discretion” in “harsh weather conditions” to allow for the defrosting of windows in vehicles, the report says.
One of the exceptions to the bylaw would allow vehicles in the city’s fleet to keep idling if needed for safety reasons, Godfrey said, citing the example of a boom truck installing lights.
The report recommends that the set fine for idling bylaw violations remain at $130. A $5 administration fee and a $25 “victim services fee” boosts the total payable to $160.
It says the number of calls received for enforcement of the idling bylaw has been low, with about 10 calls of complaint received each year.
It doesn’t recommend any changes to the city’s current enforcement practices when it comes to the idling bylaw, although it says city bylaw officers rather than city police should be responsible for enforcement. This responsibility has already been “informally” shifted from police to the city’s bylaw enforcement officers, and this arrangement should be formalized, it says.
If council passes the proposed amendments to the idling bylaw, staff will erect “educational signage on anti-idling” at major intersections into the city. Gordon Street, Woodlawn Road West, Woolwich Street and York Road would get signs in 2012 at a cost of about $800, and additional signs would be added to other entranceways to the city in future years.