To address pollution, a New York City program allows residents to report idling vehicles.
Photo by MDoculus, courtesy iStockphoto
New York City is part of one of the only major metropolitan areas in the U.S. where residents can profit by turning in some of the worst polluters.
The city’s Citizens Air Complaint Program, launched in 2018, encourages residents to take videos of idling commercial buses and trucks and file formal complaints with the city’s Department of Environmental Protection. If a company is fined, residents receive 25% of a penalty that can range from $350 to $2,000, providing an incentive for people to help end pollution in their neighborhoods.
While larger vehicles such as trucks and buses make up only 6% of on-road vehicles in New York City, they produce more than half of the city’s particle and nitrogen oxide pollution.
“At the end of the day, at least from a public health perspective, it’s not about me making $87.50 from an idling infraction,” Chris Hartmann, PhD, an associate public health professor at the State University of New York-Old Westbury, told The Nation’s Health. “It’s about promoting the healthy neighborhood and healthy city that I want to live in and want my family to live in.”
Hartmann, who recently authored a study on the air complaint program in APHA’s American Journal of Public Health, recalls filing his first idling complaint in 2019. It was not until 2021— when stay-at-home protections were in place during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — that his reports increased due to a commercial bus routinely idling across the street from his Manhattan neighborhood community garden.
“They changed the behavior once they started getting fines in the mail,” Hartmann said. “Are they 100% perfect? Absolutely not. But they’re a lot better than they were before, and it makes visiting the garden a lot better and a lot nicer.”
Since the program’s launch, participation has skyrocketed. As of September 2024, New York City residents submitted over 124,000 complaints, compared to just over 9,000 in 2019. Total penalties hit $49.2 million. As of July, the program was on track to receive between 160,000 and 200,000 complaints by the end of 2025, Hartmann said.
When it comes to air pollution, asthma is often what comes to mind first. But many people do not realize just how many adverse health effects there are, such as developmental delays in children, cardiovascular disease and stroke, said Patrick Schnell, MD, a pediatrician and member of the New York Clean Air Collective. Even a 2% drop in exposure in a city of 8 million people could have an impact, Schnell said.
The New York Clean Air Collective mobilizes people to rally against exceptions made for specific idling vehicles, such as armored trucks. The collective wants the city to help increase participation in underserved communities in other boroughs.
The city’s Department of Environmental Protection could do more to simplify report filing, as report filing can be difficult without prior knowledge of city codes or for people with limited English proficiency, Hartmann said.
“It’s basically a moneymaker, but the real moneymaker is something five, 10, 20, 30 years down the road because people are going to be less sick from it,” Schnell told The Nation’s Health. “There’ll be less asthma, COPD, cancer, mental health issues, dementia. It’s an amazing program.”
For more information, visit bit.ly/idlingnyc
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association
