Kitchener can ticket drivers idling for more than three minutes

KITCHENER — If you’re waiting outside your child’s school sitting in your car with it running, you could face a parking ticket.

The City of Kitchener has joined Waterloo and Cambridge and put in place an antiidling bylaw.

It means if motors are running for three consecutive minutes, city bylaw officers can write a ticket. The fine is $75.

In Waterloo, the bylaw is the same, while in Cambridge the idling limit is one minute and the fine is $40.

But if you’re in your favourite drive-thru, you’re safe, for now. Drive-thrus are exempt, however Coun. Margaret Johnson hopes drive-thrus can be considered in the future.

“This is our starting point. It doesn’t mean it won’t ever be there,” she said.

More than two dozen cities across Canada, including at least 10 in Ontario, ban drivethrus.

Gloria MacNeil, Kitchener’s director of bylaw enforcement, said it was not an appropriate time to ban idling in drivethrus.

It would require consultation with residents and businesses and during a pandemic it was difficult to speak to both groups.

More importantly, many businesses were hard hit with shutdowns because of COVID-19 and the increased burden on businesses would be unfair, she said.

“They have been impacted so traumatically with COVID,” MacNeil said.

Instead, the city will focus on selected target areas such as schools. Other high-volume traffic areas include community centres.

“At bell time after school you can see two dozen cars idling for 10 minutes,” she said.

It’s those drivers that bylaw officers will be looking for. This week, the city plans to educate drivers and offer pamphlets on the new bylaw.

“We are spending a lot of time on education,” MacNeil said. “It’s brand new for so many. People may not have any idea.”

Cambridge passed an antiidling bylaw in 2009, banning idling for longer than a minute around city hall and schools. Waterloo banned idling throughout the city the same year.

Nicole Papke, Waterloo’s director of bylaw enforcement, said the city issues only about five tickets a year.

“A vehicle has to be observed for at least three minutes so when an officer approaches a vehicle after a three-minute mark, the vehicle typically drives away,” she said. “Education is likely the best tool to encourage reduced idling.”

Cambridge has issued 18 tickets since the bylaw came into effect in 2009 but tickets have not been issued since 2016.

The Kitchener bylaw includes a list of exemptions including emergency vehicles, vehicles in a parade or race, those working for the region or public utilities and farming vehicles.

Kitchener began looking into banning idling vehicles last year after Johnston introduced a motion.

Johnston said she hopes drivers “do the right thing” and turn off their vehicles as they wait for the children after school.

Johnston said the bylaw meets the city’s climate action plan of an 80 per cent reduction in greenhouse emissions by 2050.

Idling releases more pollutants than driving at 50 km/h or turning your engine off and restarting it.

If drivers cut their idling by three minutes a day, the country’s greenhouse gas emissions would drop by 1.4 million tons a year, equivalent to taking 320,000 cars off the road, Johnston said.