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Campaign to teach green motoring

Local drive will focus on no-idling message

By: Kevin Rollason

Posted: 08/6/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

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PHIL.HOSSACK@FREEPRESS.MB.CA Using eatery drive-thrus will be discouraged in an upcoming anti-idling campaign.

MANITOBANS will soon be encouraged to drive greener to help the environment and save some green in their wallets.

This fall, three different environmental groups in the province will be telling Manitobans to use more fuel-efficient driving methods and do proper vehicle maintenance. They are the Manitoba Eco-Network, Resource Conservation Manitoba, and the Centre of Sustainable Transportation.

The campaign, to be called ecoDriver Manitoba, is the result of a grant from the federal government's ecoENERGY Personal Vehicles program and a grant from the provincial government.

Curt Hall of the Manitoba Eco-Network said Wednesday his group's share of the program is to promote an anti-idling campaign.

"We want to encourage people to turn off their engines, not in traffic, but at a train crossing, when picking kids up at school -- and we don't want people to go through drive-thrus," Hall said.

"It is not harmful to your engine to turn it off and then turn it on again. We were always told in the past it takes more gas to start the engine again, but that was before fuel-injected engines."

Hall said the practice helps the environment and saves money because 10 seconds of idling uses more gas than restarting an engine.

The federal government announced this week it contributed $970,000 to nine organizations across Canada including the New Brunswick Lung Association's Simple Driver Stewardship program, the Township of Langley, B.C.'s Anti-Idling campaign, and Clean Nova Scotia's DriveWiser program.

Randall McQuaker of Resource Conservation Manitoba said with the almost $150,000 it's getting, they've hired people to do several things, including developing a website, researching fuel-efficient vehicles, talking to the media and public and organizing workshops and presentations.

"We're changing driver behaviour," McQuaker said.

"We're encouraging green driving habits, which will save people money. It's also good for the environment.

"This is the first year this has been done in Manitoba. On Labour Day we'll let people know about our website."

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 6, 2009 A4

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