Here is the pertinent portion of Gary's email to me on the matter: "You are absolutely right about why truckers keep their trucks idling. It's why truck stops are the perfect place for this kind of activity,
Gary obviously hasn't seen my truck... it has a top speed of 40 miles per hour, no rear suspension, and seats only one. It lives in the main Post Office and only ventures out to run up to the garage by the armory to refuel once or twice a week. We put less than 10 miles a day on that truck, and about half of that is in reverse.We do have to idle that truck once in a while to build up air pressure to release the brakes and recharge the trucks own air starter tank so it will restart after we shut it off. We seldom idle it for more than a few minutes though.
Now Councilmember Schiff in his infinite wisdom has divined that I should take my rough riding 40 mile per hour truck to a truck stop to idle. The nearest truck stops are about 30 miles away, and my truck is not freeway legal. In fact there's some doubt if it's street legal. The manufacturer of my truck also instructs me that before driving over 5 miles at a time I have to have a mechanic disconnect the power take off that powers the elevating 5th wheel. So following Council Member Schiff's instructions I must first noisily make my way through the increasingly residential old St. Anthony neighborhood.to the garage. Having spent an hour of so awaiting the mechanic's minstrations following Councilmember Schiff's instructions I will then have to noisily make my way down city streets to the nearest truckstop. By the time I reach the truckstop hours later I'll need a long lunch to recover from my trucks brutal ride. Add in a couple hours for the return trip and another visit to the shop and I'll pretty much have spent the whole workday just complying with Councilmember Schiff's demands and move not as much as a postcard while idling for far longer than a couple minutes in Minneapolis' congested traffic. Fortunately the Postal Service has a bit more common sense than Councilmember Schiff and will federally preempt his little ordinance.
not across the street from single family homes.
Councilmember Schiff, how about apartment, condo, or townhouse dwellers? Are they a lower class of citizen unworthy of your proffered prohibitions of idling?
The result of the ordinance will be: either truckers or businesses invest in the plug-ins, resulting in quieter neighborhoods and cleaner air, or the drivers will sleep at truck stops. Either outcome is preferable."
At our Minneapolis Main Post Office we have a handful of plug ins and capacity to park 48 trucks at the loading docks alone, so clearly Councilmember Schiff deigns to exile a lot of us truckers to truckstops in Hudson, Lakeville, or Rogers to sleep. Now when I'm sleeping another driver is busy running my truck so I can't take it with me to the truck stop to sleep in, and in fact none of our trucks have sleeper cabs. So on orders of Councilmember Schiff I and my fellow Minneapolis citizens who happen to drive trucks will be evicted from our relatively warm Minneapolis homes to the frozen prairies, with nary a plug in for our electric blankets. I have to compliment Councilmember Schiff for his political genius in exiling the Minneapolis truckers who he has angered from the city so they can't vote him out of office, but he forgot about the absentee ballots...
soon to be exiled from Hawthorne,
Dyna Sluyter
REMINDERS: 1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If you think a member is in violation, contact the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list.
2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait.
For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________
Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[email protected] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
