Late last month the New York City Council passed two laws aimed at reducing vehicle idling and the harmful emissions it creates. Intro 40 expands the agencies which can enforce idling prohibitions to the Department of Parks and Recreations and the Department of Sanitation. These two agencies will join with the Department of Environmental Protection and the New York Police Department. The legislation also gives civilians the ability to report truck violations; previously citizens were only able to bring complaints against buses. The second law, Intro 631, reduces the amount of time vehicles can idle in front of public and private school facilities from three minutes to one minute. The law also strengthens reporting mechanisms, requiring the city’s Environmental Control Board and Department of Finance to submit annual reports on the number of violations and summons issued.
Reducing idling has key environmental, public health and economic effects. According to the Environmental Defense Fund’s report “Idling Gets You Nowhere,” idling cars and trucks in New York City produce 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually. Those same cars and trucks produce 760 tons of nitrogen oxides, which contribute to respiratory disease and impaired lung development, cancer, asthma, heart disease, lower IQ levels and various prenatal conditions. Finally, wasted gasoline costs in New York City add up to $45 million per year. That’s $70 for the average car owner.
This legislation marks an important step forward in the city’s commitment to enforce idling prohibitions. In 2002, only 325 idling violations were issued. While this number grew to 536 in 2007, equipping two additional agencies with the power to enforce idling prohibitions and requiring annual reporting greatly aids the city’s ability to enforce its idling laws.
[…] TSTC on NYC’s New Anti-Idling Laws (MTR) […]
There is another, arguably more important anti-idling bill which deserves everyone’s support: Int 881-2008.
Idling is one of those offenses about which people fret “there won’t be any enforcement.” Well, Int 881 addresses that in a very effective way, and is, I think, a linchpin in the goal of finally stopping the useless, constant spewing of poison into our air. It enables Traffic Enforcement Agents (“parking agents”), using their handheld ticket-writing computers, to issue idling summonses.
Ask any NYC motorist: traffic agents are extremely–seemingly magically–reliable at issuing summonses. That is in contrast with patrol cops who generally don’t issues summonses for things like idling, and with DEP inspectors who are, when it comes to ticketing the thousands of vehicles that idle each day, impossibly scarce.
Also, remember that idling is implicated in four deaths in this January alone: two toddlers in Chinatown and two young men in Queens.
Surely idling rarely causes such immediate deaths, but these four people wouldn’t be dead without it. Why allow that risk? What good does idling do to warrant that risk?
Demand fast action on Int 881-2008.
My new 2008 diesel trucks require manual regeneration.
This process requires a truck driver to stop and run the truck in neatral util the truck regenerates.Trucks that operate in the inner city and have alot of stop and go have to follow this procedure or the truck will not go above 20 miles per hour.Manual regneration takes 10 to 30 minutes. Enviromental police just issued my truck a ticket for ideling for 5 minutes. The 2008 trucks are now
burning cleaner but the city has not yet recognized that these trucks require this procedure.Trucks that go on the highway do the regneration on its own becaise the truck can reach a high enough temp.
Check out what NYC really thinks about Environmental Law Enforcement.
http://www.depwatchdog.blogspot.com
500 idling summonses in an entire year!? I could issue that many in a month without breaking a sweat. Why is the city not seriously addressing this enormous problem? The city is short on cash. This would be a great revenue generator until people get smart and stop idling.
Even better would be tax incentives for retrofitting conventional vehicles to turn off when stopped, especially in a city where many thousands of cars spend significant amounts of time at stop lights.