Q&A
Proposed 15-minute idling allowance for school buses
0:52:29
·
3 min
Council Member Avilés questions the proposed 15-minute idling allowance for school buses, seeking evidence for its necessity and potential health impacts. Commissioner Aggarwala explains the rationale behind the proposal and the legal context.
- The proposed allowance aims to address inconsistencies between school bus comfort regulations and the air code
- The 15-minute allowance is intended for heating or cooling buses before students board
- DEP follows case law created by administrative law judges in enforcing idling regulations
- The proposal seeks to clarify and tighten regulations to improve enforcement
Alexa Avilés
0:52:29
I look forward to working with you on that, and we definitely need to do a better interface that makes it easier for New Yorkers to participate.
0:52:40
In terms of currently, the idling law in New York City notes a maximum of 3 minutes.
0:52:49
And that time is cut substantially, as you know, near schools, as an acknowledgment that children are particularly a vulnerable population that we are seeking to protect.
0:53:03
Is there any evidence to suggest that 18 minutes is the amount of time that's needed for either loading or unloading or the health impacts of an 18 minute interval?
Rohit T. Aggarwala
0:53:21
I'm sorry, council member.
0:53:22
What's the 18?
Alexa Avilés
0:53:23
For 18 minutes is under, I guess, the legislation and intro 941.
Rohit T. Aggarwala
0:53:30
I I thought it was 15.
0:53:32
So council member, I'll
Alexa Avilés
0:53:33
I'll Alright.
0:53:34
Let's do 15.
Rohit T. Aggarwala
0:53:35
Yeah.
0:53:35
I'll address what the way the way I understand that and then ask the deputy commissioner to to elaborate.
0:53:42
As I mentioned in my testimony, first of all, DEP follows the case law that the administrative law judges create.
0:53:52
Right?
0:53:52
As in all legal proceedings, these are legal proceedings.
0:53:56
These are not 311 complaints.
0:53:58
Right?
0:53:59
And and some of the difficulty of the forms that we have is because this is different than just registering a plank complaint.
0:54:06
This is kind of doing the same paperwork that a DEP inspector or a police officer has to do to initiate a legal enforcement proceeding.
0:54:16
We, therefore, when we review these things, we review them both for whether they are complete in terms of evidence, is the video fully 3 minutes?
0:54:25
Do we think it shows what its claim to show?
0:54:29
We also consider it in light of the case law that has developed at both.
0:54:37
And there is a gap, as I pointed out, which I think we can fix here, which is that there is an inconsistency between the law that governs school bus internal comfort and a gap in what the law in what the error code says school buses can do.
0:54:59
As a result, both ALJs have dismissed a set of school buses of school bus cases.
0:55:10
And we believe we should use legislation to clarify and tighten it so that there is greater alignment.
0:55:17
In terms of 15 minutes, the issue here again is that these vehicles require the engine to run either for heating or for cooling.
0:55:26
And so we would be very happy to work with with the council and with the committee to make this even clearer, but there is there is going to have to be some amount of time for the bus either to cool things down when it's hot out or warm things up when it's cool out before the students get on board.
0:55:46
Let me let me just ask Julie, did I do that justice?
Julie Lubin
0:55:49
Yes.
0:55:50
That's we currently have a best practice for 15 minutes, which the law would codify.
0:55:56
In some cases, the engine of a vehicle needs the 3 minutes versus the 1 minute, but the 15 minutes is to allow for this cooling and heating?
