An idle threat?

Here in extremely liberal Ann Arbor, the city council and its various boards and commissions apparently have nothing better to do than harass citizens for driving. The latest proposal (which is being treated with utmost seriousness) is to make it a crime to idle the engine in your car.

I am not making this up. They really are proposing it, and as is typical of this busybody mentality, they are claiming it’s “for the children“:

Matthew Naud, the city of Ann Arbor’s environmental coordinator, told council members Monday night an ordinance banning “egregious idling” could improve the community’s health.

“Recently there’s been a lot of data about elevated levels of benzene and particulate matter, especially at elementary schools,” he said. “So you have parents waiting and idling to pick up their kids, buses idling right in front of the air intakes at these schools.”

Naud said that means “young lungs” are getting exposed to unnecessary vehicle emissions, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency shares the same concerns.

The Ann Arbor City Council didn’t take any action on the issue at Monday’s meeting, but it did receive a report and draft copy of an idling ordinance from the city’s Environmental Commission, which is recommending the ban on idling vehicles.

Imagine being a cop and having to enforce such idiocy. Especially in the winter when temperatures stay in the single digits for weeks at a time. Or in the summer when it’s 97 degrees in the blasted sun, and the only thing preventing drivers from fainting is the air conditioning in their cars. (For those who are not motor heads, car heaters and air conditioners do not run unless the engine is running.)

You’d almost think the city bureaucrats had nothing to do than cook up schemes to invade the lives of innocent citizens only trying to cope with day-to-day life.

Not that it seems to matter to the arrogant city government, but local Ann Arborites don’t like the idea of this ordinance.

Of nearly 2,000 readers who took an AnnArbor.com poll earlier this week, about 77 percent said they think a local idling ban is unnecessary.

I think it is part and parcel of a growing anti-automobile movement, not only in Ann Arbor, but nationwide. Ann Arbor has a so-called “traffic calming” program which puts speed bumps, roadblocks, and other devices on streets where neighbors have the most pull with city hall, and naturally, this only creates increased demand for the devices, because diverted traffic spills over onto other streets. On one such street, they installed at least half a dozen such diverters, and added a sign saying “NO CUT THRU TRAFFIC.” I walk by this street (which is near me) almost daily, and I took a picture:

Almost like having your own little gated community right in the middle of the city, eh? What makes that street so damned special that you can’t drive on it the same way you can on other streets?

And while I don’t like being petty and selfish, the natural reaction to seeing that happen on a nearby street is to say “Why not my street too?”

Nothing calm about it. Oh, and of course the city also wants to cut back on the number of driveways. A recent anti-driveway push (“access management”) is part of city’s anti-car transportation policy.  So is reducing the number of lanes from four to to and adding bike lanes that end up being rarely used. That’s called “complete streets.” Sounds great in theory, but the traffic snarlups that are being created are anything but calming. And why is it that the speed bumps have a space for bicycles on each side? So that cars are forced to slow to 5 MPH while bikes can zip through? What is “complete” about that? And what is “complete” about closing off dedicated streets to motor vehicle traffic entirely, while allowing bicycles?

Seen in the overall context, the threat to make it a crime to idle your car is anything but idle.

As to protecting the children, I’m not an expert on their tiny lungs, but it strikes me that this child might be safer riding in a car.


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4 responses to “An idle threat?”

  1. Simon Avatar
    Simon

    I dunno. I imagined a small child in the seat behind the female rider.

    What got me to thinking about that? The black bar across the woman’s face.

    But there may be some value in that. She may be training her child to be a quarterback.

  2. […] Eric Scheie has the real-world perspective: Imagine being a cop and having to enforce such idiocy. Especially in the winter when temperatures stay in the single digits for weeks at a time. Or in the summer when it’s 97 degrees in the blasted sun, and the only thing preventing drivers from fainting is the air conditioning in their cars. (For those who are not motor heads, car heaters and air conditioners do not run unless the engine is running.) […]

  3. hmi Avatar
    hmi

    I’m at least partly on the other side of this one. Before NYC began enforcing limits on idling, I had to live with clouds of diesel exhaust from school buses alongside the school down the street. Regularly, especially in winter, there would be 6 buses idling each afternoon for 30-60 minutes, each one running the engine in order to keep a solitary driver warm. Now the drivers shut off the buses and go sit in the school lobby. I’m all for it.

  4. Old Curmudgeon Avatar
    Old Curmudgeon

    To address the lesser problem, the phrase “traffic calming” is a lie. What it is, and what it does, is traffic blocking, slowing and snarling.