The folks at Transportation Options in the City of Portland’s Office of Transportation have produced a brochure called Idling. Its full of great factoids about what is wrong about idling your car for more than 10 seconds. On the front it says “It’s a toxic health hazard, it’s hard on your engine, and it wastes expensive gas.†From a cyclist’s perspective, it’s that first one that is the main issue. I work as a Safe Routes to School coordinator so I’m familiar with the congestion around schools each morning. According to the brochure, asthma is the 3rd leading cause of hospitalization for children under 15, and asthma is linked to automobile pollution. Asthma is also the number one reason kids miss school.
Have you ever waited on the Hawthorne Bridge with long lines of idling cars? That pollution is not just bad for kids, it’s bad for us as well.
Here is the one that really struck me. “Exposure to most vehicle exhaust is much higher inside vehicles than at the roadside†This is especially true when the car is idling. The Car Guys have been saying this for years. If you are idling in a car in a line at the bank, or the drive through coffee place, Turn It Off!
Thought that you might be interested in Vancouver, BC’s anti-idling bylaw and related efforts, at this link:
http://www.onedayvancouver.ca/take_action.php?itemId=40
I appreciate the concern about idling vehicles. I believe that if the driving public is educated about the negative impacts of unnecessary vehicle idling they will TURN IT OFF! Toward that end, I’d like to provide a link to the idling brochure as mentioned by Scott L.
http://www.gettingaroundportland.org
go to transportation options/automobile/Idling Gets You Nowhere
This is great. I live across the street from a park and people sit in their idling cars all the time. They talk on the phone, wait for their kids, have a snack, etc. Depending on the season, they want to keep the heat or air conditioning on.
Are the brochures available at bike shops (or somewhere else) where I could get some to give to the happy idlers in my neighborhood, or do I need to print them off from the website?
Bravo, Portland! I write a sustainability tip at work (which is often like pissing in the wind), but it’s cool to have the folks at home supporting the effort.
Natural Resources Canada has a good page about this too:
http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/transportation/idling/material/personal-idling-plan.cfm?attr=8