Ottawa residents who have made New Year's resolutions to quit smoking or idling their vehicles will be getting some reinforcement from the City of Ottawa in the form of new fines.

With the start of the new year, the city has begun enforcing certain bylaws for the first time with fines of:

• Up to $5,000 for people who smoke within nine metres of a bus stop or shelter.
• Up to $100 for drivers caught running the engine of their car while stopped at the curb for more than three minutes.

Kim Weston-Martin, chief special constable of transit law enforcement for Ottawa, said she knows people are used to the smoking law not being enforced, and officers will give people a warning before they start to apply fines.

However, the intention is to enforce respect for drivers and other passengers, she said.

"At a bus stop, for example, where a person's standing, our bus driver will pull up and at times, the person will take the last drag of the cigarette, board the bus and blow the smoke in the operator's face," she said. "It not only affects the operator but it affects everybody on the bus."

Both the smoking and idling bylaws include exceptions.

The nine metre radius is adjusted for stops that don't have much space around them.

In the case of the idling bylaw, it only applies to occupied vehicles when the temperature is between five and 27 degrees Celsius. Unoccupied vehicles aren't allowed to idle for more than three minutes regardless of the temperature.

The bylaw will not apply to emergency vehicles, armoured vehicles, taxis at airports or train stations, farm machinery or hybrid-electric vehicles.

Stephen Hazell, executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada, an Ottawa-based environmental group, said he understands why those exceptions have been built in.

"But it does take away from the overall impact of the bylaw, which is really to reduce the amount of smog that we get in Ottawa and to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions."

The idling bylaw was passed in May. The bus stop smoking bylaw has been on the books since 1994, but there have been no penalties for violation until now.