Kelowna’s proposed anti-idling bylaw will be a light touch. The city council will consider a bylaw Monday that would include exemptions for vehicles stuck in traffic as well as transit vehicles, airplanes, trains, racing cars, parades, emergency or armored vehicles and refrigerated trucks. The proposed one-minute bylaw would apply to all drivers within Kelowna city limits on both public and private property, but is intended to be “complaint-based and educational in nature.” The city’s air quality coordinator would receive all complaints and direct only the “most egregious” complaints involving repeat offenders to the bylaws department for follow-up. “A fixed fine of $150 is proposed as a reasonable but significant enough penalty to encourage compliance for second and subsequent violations,” a city staff report said. The city council asked staff to draft an anti-idling bylaw in April, but it was clear at the time that they would not support something that would turn neighbors against each other. “I hope we don’t start going after people too aggressively and citizens make it their mission to take pictures of license plates and expect people to be fined,” County Councilman Brad Sieben said earlier this year. About 63,000 vehicles hit Kelowna’s roads every day and the average Canadian driver idles six to eight minutes a day. If all Kelowna drivers reduced idling by just one minute a day, approximately 1,500 tonnes of CO2 would be saved in a year. Council will discuss the proposed bylaw Monday afternoon.
