Windsor puts proposed idling bylaw changes on hold

A proposal to reduce the amount of time Windsor motorists can idle their vehicles has been put on hold.

Windsor's environment committee discussed the pollution report at a meeting Wednesday afternoon.Coun. Fred Francis had too many questions about how the changes would affect drivers.

• Windsor considers reducing car idling times to 1 minute

A pollution report recommends reducing idling limits from the current five minutes down to one minute.

"Are we going to be sending out bylaw enforcement people to ticket people idling in their driveways? That's not something I have a particular interest in," Francis said.

He also asked for more details about whether motorists would be allowed to idle longer during the winter or while sitting in drive-thrus. He's not sure how to ticket drivers who sit in a drive-thru or become stuck in traffic.

"I'm thinking about, potentially, drive-thrus. I'm thinking about Huron Church [and] Highway 3, which is an international truck corridor and the tunnel, we all know, sometimes, when there's detours or delays at the tunnel or the bridge, trucks line up. So, are we going to be sending our bylaw enforcement to ticket them?" he asked.

Francis said he wants more details before he'll support the new idling enforcement measure.

The previous idling bylaw was passed in 2001. It states, "no person shall cause or permit a vehicle or boat to idle for more than five minutes in a sixty-minute period."

It does not address what that means for or how to deal with vehicles in a drive-thru line or stuck in traffic.