Kelowna’s new anti-idling bylaw is now in effect

A new anti-idling bylaw has come into force in Kelowna.

It will look to crack down on people idling for more than one minute within the city.

Lawmakers recently approved the new rules, supporting a campaign that will hinge heavily on education to create better idling habits among drivers.

It burns more fuel to let your car idle for more than 10 seconds than it does to turn it off and back on again.

Pair that with the fact over half of Kelowna’s greenhouse gas emissions come from transportation and it’s no wonder the city is working to get people to wean themselves off idling.

“If you are going to be stopped for more than 60 seconds, except in traffic, turn your engine off,” Regional Air Quality Coordinator, Nancy Mora Castro, said at a council meeting on April 25.

Education is at the core of the bylaw, with only repeat and egregious offenders being dinged with a $150 fine. Investigations will be complaint driven. It’s expected maybe nine or 10 people will face tickets each year.

The law will have a one-minute idling grace period and not apply to people waiting in traffic. Drive-thrus will be included, as a survey found 96 per cent of vehicles idled for about four minutes while waiting in line.

Exemptions will apply for things like emergency vehicles, perishable cargo trucks, and mechanical tests.

The law has a six-month grace period, with a massive education campaign planned during this time. The goal is to work on changing behavior and making it the norm to idle for under a minute.

Data from Natural Resources Canada shows the average Canadian idles for six to eight minutes per day. If Kelowna drivers – all 63,000 of them - cut out one minute of idling every day, over 1,580 tons of CO2 would be saved each year. The drivers themselves would save about $20 on fuel.

Boost that number to three or six minutes of reduced idling, fuel savings jump to $59 and $118, and almost 9,500 fewer tons of CO2 would be pumped into the atmosphere.

An anti-idling bylaw has been tossed around City Hall since 2010, but the trigger was never pulled.

More than 80 cities in Canada already have similar rules, including 45 places in British Columbia, as do several European nations and American states.

Schools in Kelowna have been no idling zones since 2009. The same survey that found drive-thrus to be idling hotspots recorded just six per cent of cars idling at elementary schools.