Amy Eickhoff says the charter buses that idle outside her 62-floor building spew fumes so noxious that people living there avoid going out on their balconies.
“All those fumes do is go right up the side of the building like a chimney,” said Eickhoff, who for 14 years has been the building manager at 340 On The Park, a downtown Chicago luxury residential tower. “If you were sitting on your balcony trying to enjoy the beautiful view of Maggie Daley Park or Grant Park, you’re smelling that odor for as long as they’re idling.”
Idling buses have been a problem for years, according to Eickhoff, who says she sees one to three buses a day idling on the upper and middle levels of Randolph Street.
Of greater concern, Eickhoff said, are the four or five charter buses she sees idling every day outside the nearby Blue Cross Blue Shield Tower. Eickhoff said they sit there as they take employees to and from commuter train stations. That tower is a short distance from her building, but Eickhoff said it “doesn’t really make a difference” because the wind spreads the fumes.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois did not respond to requests for comment.
A 2006 state law set a limit on idling time to 10 minutes per hour and imposes penalties for violations. Illinois legislators said they were aiming to protect the environment and reduce exposure to diesel pollution, which can harm health and disproportionately affects marginalized communities.
Yet, in the nearly 20 years the law has been in effect, it’s almost never been enforced, a WBEZ and Chicago Sun-Times review has found. Over that period, the Chicago Police Department and the Cook County sheriff’s office each has issued just one citation.
“What are local governments doing to protect their own citizens from excessively polluting trucks that can sit there for hours idling outside someone’s window, outside someone’s business, outside of school?” said Brian Urbaszewski, who is director of environmental health programs for the Respiratory Health Association and pushed to pass the state law.
Former state Rep. Elaine Nekritz, D-Northfield, cosponsored the measure at Urbaszewski’s urging. Told how seldom the law is enforced, she laughed.
“That’s more in line with what I might have expected,” said Nekritz, who spent 14 years in the Illinois House.
Nekritz she she has reported violations herself.
“When there’s been tour buses sitting around idling, occasionally I would call the police, and nothing ever happened,” she said. “I appreciate that our law enforcement has other crimes to be concerned about and that they also have limited resources. But it’s a real public health issue, and diesel pollution is so bad for our health.”
Enforcing the law would require an inordinate amount of officers’ time, said Sophia Ansari, a sheriff’s spokesperson.
“To prove excessive idling, an officer would need to time how long a diesel-fueled vehicle has been idling and the sheriff’s office does not utilize its resources to pull officers away from more pressing public safety duties to enforce this law,” according to Ansari, who said the agency will investigate complaints of excessive idling but that it’s not a “top priority to stake out an idling truck.”
Melaney Arnold, chief public information officer for the Illinois State Police, agreed that the time needed to catch violators is the key issue.
“To issue a citation for excessive idling, an officer would need to observe the idling for more than 10 minutes and ensure the vehicle is not idling due to one of the 17 listed exemptions,” Arnold said.
Idling restrictions don’t apply to emergency or law enforcement vehicles in emergency situations. Nor do public transit buses or vehicles weighing under 8,000 pounds fall under the law. Drivers can idle if sitting in highway traffic or when the weather is below freezing or above 80 degrees. Also, diesel-fueled vehicles are allowed to idle for up to 30 minutes an hour if they’re waiting to load, unload or weigh cargo or freight.
Elk Grove Village officials have chosen not to ticket anyone for excessive idling because, Mayor Craig Johnson said, because the police prefer to deal with drivers without ticketing or fining them: “We just do it in a better way, of working with the [business] owners and the truckers, and they’ve always been very cooperative with us.”
Des Plaines city spokesman Brad Goodman said no one in that suburb has ever filed a complaint with the city or the police department about idling vehicles.
The same is the case in Melrose Park, according to village spokesman Andrew Mack: “While we have not received any complaints about excessive idling, any resident can reach out to the village with their concerns.”
City rule sees few citations, too
The city of Chicago has its own anti-idling ordinance, passed in 2009 and similar in its restrictions to the state law. But it limits legal idling time to just three minutes an hour. The city also exempts airport vehicles.
The city ordinance has been enforced more often than the state law, though still relatively seldom, with more than 800 citations since 2010. The city’s finance department was responsible for 631 municipal idling tickets, while nearly 160 were issued by the public health department and 64 by the police department.
“That’s encouraging, but, when you extrapolate that over 17 years, that’s still not a lot considering how often it goes on — every day, every block,” said Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd).
And enforcement has sharply fallen off since 2011, the peak year. Citations by the police have been in the single digits for years. And the finance department issued just 19 citations last year.
After hearing complaints about idling violations, Reilly pushed for an amendment to the city idling ordinance to “deputize citizens” to document idling vehicles and file an online complaint with the Chicago Department of Public Health. It failed in 2023. He said he’ll try again.
It was an idea he borrowed from New York City’s much more successful anti-idling law.
“I figured this would be a way to free up city resources and enforcement resources to focus on those higher priorities while citizens could serve as an extension of the city and report these violations in real time,” Reilly said.
In New York City, people can file a complaint about idling vehicles with supporting documentation, like a video, through an online portal. In 2024, that resulted in more than 124,000 vehicle idling complaints. If officials can verify a violation, New Yorkers can collect 25% of any fines. Reilly’s proposal didn’t include any such reward.
Eickhoff lives in Reilly’s ward.
“We’re asking for responsible operational planning that acknowledges that people live in these areas full time,” the downtown apartment building manager said. “They shouldn’t have to absorb any environmental or safety issues as a result of commercial transporters’ convenience.”