What Pedestrians? What DPW Budget? What Lung Cancer? What Climate Catastrophe?

 

The DPW truck parked on the sidewalk in front of 401 State this morning (feet from the empty parking lot) had both of its windows down all the way while the vehicle was idling.  The two workers who arrived in that truck were busy preparing thermoplastic crosswalk lines across the end of 4th Street when a second DPW truck arrived with one employee supplying the gas cannisters and heat gun needed for the task. That truck was also left idling.  It was much too hot for me to stick around to see how long the DPW vehicles were left idling, but I'm thinking the workers remained there for at least a half hour, possibly much longer. 

When unnecessarily idling vehicles become the norm, you know we are in for serious trouble.  In my mind, that serious trouble has already arrived.  We are in the beginning stages of a climate catastrophe caused in large part by too much vehicle exhaust, too much reliance on fossil fuels and too much CO2 pumped into the atmosphere.  And far too much idling of vehicles as if it doesn't matter one bit. 

Windows down, engine on