New York City Tightens Screws on Polluting Engine Idlers

The mayor signed another new law that authorizes the departments of Sanitation and Parks and Recreation to issue summonses for breaking anti-idling laws. Current practice has been for the city's Department of Environmental Protection to administratively assign this responsibility to these agencies.

While the city has restricted idling since 1971, the law have rarely been enforced, but the mayor says the time for enforcement has arrived.

"Our administration's PlaNYC commits to improving compliance with existing anti-idling laws through a targeted public awareness campaign, which will be launched this year, and also by increasing enforcement of these laws," said Mayor Bloomberg.

The city has scheduled a public education campaign this spring for drivers of trucks, autos and car services that highlights the benefits of turning the engine off while waiting.

The nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund, which has its headquarters in New York City, simultaneously released a report outlining other non-legislative ways to reduce idling in the city.

"We applaud the mayor and City Council for enacting these cost-free laws to improve air quality at the street level where our kids breathe, play and work, but they won't mean a thing if the city doesn't enforce them," said Isabelle Bodmer Silverman, who authored the EDF study "Idling Gets You Nowhere."

An attorney for the Living Cities program at Environmental Defense Fund, Silverman is the mother of two school-aged children. "Idling is an unnecessary source of roadside air pollution that increases the risk of health problems for all New Yorkers, including drivers of idling vehicles," she said.

The report shows that idling vehicles in New York City annually produce 940 tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides, that Silverman says is the equivalent of nine million large trucks driving from Hunts Point in the Bronx to Staten Island.

Pollutants from idling are associated with respiratory disease and impaired lung development, cancer, asthma, heart disease, lower IQ levels and prenatal complications.

To offset the annual global warming pollution from idling cars and trucks in New York City, which amounts to 130,000 tons of carbon dioxide, the city would need to plant trees covering an area the size of Manhattan every year, the report estimates.

Silverman's report also shows that New York City vehicles annually waste about $28 million annually in fuel by idling, based on an average gasoline price of $2.00 per gallon and an average diesel price of $2.50 per gallon.

To further reduce idling, the report recommends that all 2,300 police traffic enforcement agents be authorized to ticket illegal idling and that it be made an option on handheld ticketing devices. Currently, only about 100 traffic enforcement agents are authorized to issue idling tickets.

EDF suggests designating at least 10 percent of traffic enforcement agents to focus on anti-idling enforcement or or hiring additional traffic enforcement agents to do the job.

"People fall into the habit of idling because they are unaware of the law and the costs of idling, but the fact is that if you sit idle for more than 10 seconds, you save more gas by shutting off your engine," said Silverman. "Shutting down and restarting your engine doesn't hurt the starter in today's high tech buses, cars and trucks, and it actually decreases overall engine wear."

The EDF report recommends that businesses and fleet managers install anti-idling technologies such as auxiliary power units and automatic engine-shutoff devices.

They could consider addressing idling as part of an overall approach to fleet management by communicating with drivers about the health impacts of idling and new technologies to reduce it, the report suggests.

Co-authored by Edward Burgess and Mel Peffers and funded by The Hinkle Charitable Foundation and The New York Community Trust, the full report and summary of "Idling Gets You Nowhere" is online at: www.edf.org/stopidling.

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2009. All rights reserved.