Sudbury council parks anti-idling bylaw

Sudbury city council is doing a U-turn on the proposed anti-idling bylaw.

A few weeks ago, the operations committee voted to create the bylaw.After approving the proposed bylaw in principle, city councillors changed their minds this week.

Councillor Frances Caldarelli said the public spoke out.

She said there were "a lot of calls, a lot of comments, most of them negative. We've had a bit of a talk amongst ourselves and I think we just came to the conclusion that we may have done this too quickly. Perhaps people don't understand what we're trying to do."

Council has chosen to send back the proposed bylaw to the operations committee to be re-worked.

The proposed bylaw would have limited idling to one minute. Other Canadian cities allow drivers to the leave the engine running for three minutes.

Caldarelli said she wonders if the city should sponsor an anti-idling education campaign instead of passing a bylaw.