Denley Gets Idling Bylaw Right: QUOTABLE
“Instead of getting caught up in how many minutes of idling would be acceptable, as councillors did, they should have asked themselves why they were passing a bylaw that will achieve next to nothing and won’t be much enforced. As a follow-up, how much time and money was spent on the staff report?”
Randall Denley, Ottawa Citizen
That pretty much says it all.
The enforcement record on the old idling limit was almost non-existent. Now Ottawa City Council has lowered the idling limit.
To what end?
It sends out the grand old virtue signalling that is worth votes but not utility. And in dealing with this worthless issue, how much time has been wasted by council that could have been used providing some surprising oversight of the light-rail project.
What a waste.
Ken Gray
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In the CTV article, the mayor actually stated it would not be enforced too much. That means it was brought into force for simply aesthetic reasons. Virtue signaling. I have two concerns with this by law, if it is actually enforced, around 200,000 people are going to rush to their doctors to ask for exemption notes. That’s the approximate number of people in Ottawa who were disabled, ex cancer patients, diabetics, and elderly, that would be eligible for this special dispensation note that only a doctor or nurse can sign. Instantly overwhelming our medical system. Secondly it looks like city staff put one over on the politicians and they cherry picked the comparisons with other cities. They chose the cities that did not reference the phrase which reference that the car had to be run until windows were clear in accordance with the highway traffic for act. Several other cities not mentioned by city staff included that paragraph. So not only is this by law simply virtue signaling, it’s also an enforceable according to the highway traffic act. And it could cause incredible grief by overwhelming the medical system should it actually be enforced. All around really stupid
C – thank you for clearly articulating what a reasonably intelligent councillor should have understood.
Denley seems to be on a roll. First his October 1st column on the police use of horses and now this on on idling. Both issues I can support, something rare when Denley is involved.
If this bylaw is enforced primarily on a complaint basis, will a video of the offender idling for longer than is permitted be accepted as proof? If I film, with audio, the car or bus including the plate for identification and some background to show the location, would that suffice until a bylaw officer would appear on location? My phone date- and time-stamps the video.
How quickly will a bylaw officer rush to the scene of the offense when I call it in? Or are we to be limited to officers citing offenders only when they stumble upon them as they go about their duties? Does anyone actually believe that a bylaw officer, upon coming across an idling vehicle, is going to sit there and time how long that goes on? How many people, on seeing an officer in a marked car, won’t turn off their engine only to turn it back on when the coast is clear?