Waterloo looks to make no-idling bylaw more efficient

It has been active for a little more than ten years – since then, only 20 tickets have been issued

The city of Waterloo is taking a closer look at how they can improve a rarely-enforced no-idling bylaw.

It’s the latest initiative to strengthen the city’s fight against climate change.

The city of Waterloo's director of municipal services, Shayne Turner, tells The Mike Farwell Show on 570 NEWS they are going through a review of their services to better pinpoint where their priorities are.

“Idling is an important issue, but it’s also just one issue in the whole fight against climate change. When looking at these types of issues, we need to look at what we can do in terms of education and other ways to assign priorities, maybe reallocate staff. It’s not always as simple as saying ‘we need to throw more officers or more money,’ at a situation.”

He says the focus should not be on the number of tickets issues, but on the objectives of the bylaw.

“What is the objective of the bylaw? The objective of the bylaw is to reduce emissions. So really, I believe this is more about education than it is about reinforcement. Having the ability to say ‘if you don’t do this, you will be ticketed’ is one thing, but what we want to do is revamp our communications plan and focus on anti-idling because it’s the right thing to do, not just because it’s the law.”

Turner says the focus now is to educate the public.

“I think there’s some signage, particularly at city facilities, maybe encouraging some of the private property owners by shopping malls to use some signage. We’re going to work on warnings that our officers can use, so they don’t have to wait three minutes. If the car is idling they can put a warning on it saying, ‘this is not good for the environment’.”

The no-idling bylaw has been active for a little more than ten years – since then, only 20 tickets have been issued in Waterloo.