Conscious Choice: Reducing the City’s Environmental Impact

August 2008 | From the Commish

Reducing the City’s Environmental Impact

Rising gas prices seem to affect every Chicagoan in some form or fashion. Maybe public transportation and bicycling are now a necessity rather than an option for your family. Gas prices also affect how the city functions. That’s why it’s critical that the city manages how services and day-to-day operations are provided to ensure continued job creation, economic development and improve the quality of life while having minimal long-term impact on the environment.

This month I’d like to introduce you to Department of Fleet Management (DFM) Commissioner Howard Henneman. DFM’s continued work and partnership is a vital piece to the city’s effort to operate in a more environmentally-friendly fashion.

The Chicago DFM procures, maintains, fuels and manages more than 11,000 units of equipment for city departments and sister agencies, ranging from cars and pick-up trucks to ambulances and snow plows. DFM has been recognized as having the “Best Fleet in North America” by Fleet Equipment Magazine.

Mayor Daley continually challenges all department heads to use best management practices, and I believe that the men and woman at DFM meet that challenge daily. DFM has incorporated fuel and energy efficient vehicles into our fleet, increased the use of clean fuels and basically explored a range of options that will ensure that we’re operating in an environmentally conscious manner.

As part of the city’s Environmental Action Agenda, we made a commitment to increase the size of the alternative fuel and hybrid fleet by 10 percent every year, and have exceeded this goal.

The city operates a fleet of 596 alterative fuel and hybrid vehicles. The alternative fuel and hybrid fleet consists of 256 hybrid vehicles (including one plug-in electric hybrid Escape), 264 E-85 or Flexible Fuel vehicles and 76 Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) Units. Additionally the department has recently acquired a hybrid bucket truck and shuttle bus, and is working to purchase a hybrid refuse truck.

The department has made alternative fuels available for the fleet throughout the city. DFM currently dispenses E-85 (85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline) at four fuel sites and CNG is available at five fuel sites. One additional E-85 site and an additional CNG site will be available later this year. In April of 2008, the department switched to B-5 (5 percent bio-diesel and 95 percent diesel) diesel fuel at all of its fueling stations.

The city established a voluntary Idling Management Policy in 2006, requiring that city vehicles idle no more than five minutes during a sixty minute period. As we researched the benefits of the plan, the city determined that if our fleet of vehicles were to idle for one hour per day, we’d waste about 1 gallon of fuel per hour for diesel vehicles and .75 gallons of fuel per hour for automobiles totaling $2,861,000 in wasted fuel annually. Reducing one hour of idling can also reduce the emissions of 87 metric tons of nitrogen oxide, 390 metric tons of carbon monoxide and 14,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide. In addition to the equipment related green practices, DFM has also expanded its day to day green practices into additional areas.

When you consider the fuel savings, improved air quality and reduced wear and tear on engines, the policy adds up to a win-win situation all the way around. DFM along with our partners such as DOE, the Chicago Transit Authority and others look forward to continuing our role in keeping Chicago the greatest and greenest city in the nation.

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