Drive Clean ready for expansion

Ontario’s Drive Clean program is set to expand to parts of southwestern Ontario and eastern Ontario, including the municipalities of Chatham-Kent, Ottawa, Kingston and Cornwall. The emissions test requirement only applies to vehicles with license plate expiries on or after July 1, 2002 in the expansion area. The first vehicle owners to be affected will began receiving notices of the test requirements in April. Ontario’s Drive Clean program is also recruiting auto-service facilities to offer vehicle emissions tests and repairs, as the program expands to help protect air quality across Ontario’s “smog zone”.

“Drive Clean has proven to be a success in the Toronto and Hamilton areas where it reduced smog-causing vehicle emissions by 11.5 per cent in its first two years,” Environment Minister Elizabeth Witmer said. “It also reduced other pollutants such as greenhouse gases. I know that there will be similar benefits in the expansion area.”

Drive Clean was launched in the Toronto and Hamilton areas in January of 1999. The program expanded in January of 2001 to urban centres from Windsor to Peterborough.

Currently, Drive Clean has about 1,500 facilities offering services to light vehicles in the existing program area. By the end of 2001, they had tested more than 3.5 million vehicles. There are also about 600 facilities across Ontario providing heavy-duty vehicle tests. Between 200 and 300 new facilities will be needed in the expansion area.