Scenic Saint Paul

It was a process full of surprises, at least for our side. St. Paul Planning staff had been developing two options for Planning Commission and City Council consideration: outright ban of e-billboards in St. Paul and permitting them in exchange for taking down some others. Somewhere along the way, the ban dropped from sight. Then, the final Council vote was suddenly moved up a week - we found out less than a day in advance.

The final ordinance permits the dangerous eyesores, subject to restrictions on location and design, in exchange for removal of some traditional boards. The net result? People driving through St. Paul on the freeway will get the message "Saint Paul = tawdry." They will be inclined to keep on driving to their suburb, where billboards mostly are banned.

The billboard industry, however, says it refuses to compromise. So maybe it ain't over.

You don't need to look very far to find one in Saint Paul! In a census taken in 2010 it was found that Saint Paul still has 522 billboards. This is extraordinarily high and far surpasses the number in Minneapolis and is more than any other city in Minnesota . Here is a map of the locations of all Saint Paul billboards . Give this PDF file a minute to download.

Thanks to the work of Gerald Mischke based on previous efforts of John Mannillo and Paul Singh, we have maps of billboard locations by ward. Wait a minute for these sizeable *.pdf files to load. Here is a summary map by ward. And here is one showing the disparity between billboard density in the cities vs. the metro.
Ward 1
Ward 2
Ward 3
Ward 4
Ward 5
Ward 6
Ward 7

Last year brought more onerous legislation about land use protections affecting St. Paul billboards. The City Attorney, under the Mayor’s direction, then settled numerous pending lawsuits giving a windfall gain to Clear Channel Communications. City Hall needs to end such corporate welfare and the Minnesota Legislature needs to tailor land use protections specifically to control this unique form of community blight.

Minnesota residents and their representatives deserve the right to decide where billboards should and should not be allowed. It is perfectly reasonable for them to be able to decide whether views of their parks, lakes, skylines, neighborhoods, and other special spaces have mega-signs are tarnished by billboards. They should be able to decide if a gaudy “We buy ugly houses” billboard belongs near the home their family works so hard to maintain. They should be able to decide if their property values should continue to be held down by adjacent billboards, just to guarantee a steady stream of payments to billionaire Red McCombs’ Texas-based billboard company.

If you agree that communities should have the right to decide how billboards are used in their own neighborhoods, ask your legislator to give community leaders the power to limit billboard use through the only practical land use tool at their disposal, amortization.

When it comes to controlling land use, communities have two basic tools – condemnation and amortization. Condemnation is a slow and expensive option that isn’t a particularly viable option for many financially strapped communities. If you think communities should have the option to limit billboards use, amortization is the practical tool they need.

Under amortization, owners are given notice that their property no longer fits with the community’s land use preferences. It gives the owners a few years to make transition plans before they must comply with the zoning decision. It is a tool that has been used for decades by Minnesota citizens and their representatives to maintain their communities. Local residents and officials have used amortization to ensure that billboards, junkyards, sex shops and other inappropriate structures don’t mar Minnesota communities.

But when it comes to billboards, that tool has been taken away from communities. In 1999 the Minnesota Legislature, under pressure from billionaire Red McComb’s billboard lobbyists, banned our communities from using the amortization tool to control billboard use. The League of Minnesota Cities and other community leaders strongly opposed the proposal, but billboard lobbyists proved more powerful.

That law is unfair to all Minnesota communities, but St. Paul is especially affected because we have the most billboard-plagued neighborhoods in the state. While billboards are not allowed in most suburban communities, St. Paul hosts an astounding 620 billboards, most in and near residential neighborhoods.

Most Minnesota communities have already banned or limited billboards St. Paul and other communities should no longer be held hostage by billionaire Red McComb’s lobbyists. The time for the Legislature to give communities the option of controlling billboard use is now.

Billboards are advertisements. They are designed to grab our attention, and hold it, just like a television or radio commercial or an ad in a magazine. The latest in billboard technology—the digital or electronic sign—tries to hold our attention even longer by changing messages and pictures every few seconds using a series of extremely bright, colorful images produced mainly via LED (lightemitting
diode) technologies.
Common sense tells us that if we are looking at a billboard and not at
the road when we are driving, that's a dangerous thing. Brightly lit signs
that change messages every few seconds compel us to notice them, much
the same way our eyes move to the television screen when it's on. They
lure our attention away from what's happening on the road and onto the
sign. It's just human nature. And it works. That's why these signs are so
incredibly lucrative for the billboard industry.
Proponents of digital billboards say nobody has ever proven that they
increase traffic accidents. This statement is only partially true. Some studies
have shown a link between digital billboards (as well as static boards) and
traffic safety problems, while others remained inconclusive. Importantly,
no objective studies have shown them to be safe, nor have studies been
conducted since these signs have started to proliferate.
What does the research currently say?
A Wisconsin Department of Transportation study conducted in the
1980s examined crash rates on I-94 East and West adjacent to the
Milwaukee County stadium, after a variable message sign that showed
sports scores and ads had been installed. The study found that sideswipe
and rear-end collisions were up as much as 35 percent where the sign
was most visible.
A 1998 FHWA memo noted that digital signs raise “significant highway safety questions because of the potential to be extremely bright, rapidly changing, and distracting to motorists.” n A 2001 FHWA review of billboard safety studies found that “the safety consequences of distraction from the driving task can be profound.”
A 2003 report titled External-To-Vehicle Driver Distraction, by the Development Department Research Programme in Scotland, found that “there is overwhelming evidence that advertisements and signs placed near junctions can function as distracters, and that this constitutes a major threat to road safety.” It further noted that, “Young (aged 17–21) drivers are particularly prone to external-to-vehicle driver distraction.”
If other studies have remained inconclusive, there is good reason, researchers say. First, many of the studies have been funded, and directed, by the billboard industry (see sidebar). Second, there are inherent difficulties in conducting traffic safety research. Jerry Wachtel, an engineering psychologist with 25 years of experience in the field of driver behavior, said too many variables contribute to traffic accidents to make it possible to prove causality from a single source. “Most accidents are not caused by one thing, but multiple things happening at once,” he said. According to Wachtel, digital billboards undoubtedly contribute to the growing number of distractions that vie for a driver's attention today. Cell phones, navigational systems, and DVD players constitute in-car distractions, while billboards, especially those that change messages, constitute external distractions. Both, he said, contribute to traffic safety hazards that he believes are growing increasingly worse. “The outdoor adv ertising industry in my opinion is one part of the problem, but a significant part,” he said.
Wachtel co-authored a report for the Federal Highway Administration back in the 1980s, updated in 2001, which concluded that “some studies showed a clear relationship between the presence of outdoor signs and driver error or accidents and other studies hadn't shown anything.” It recommended government-funded research into the issue, but the research was never funded. The Federal Highway Administration in January 2007, however, announced that it will initiate a study to examine the safety issues related to electronic signs. Details on the scope and timing of the research have not been released, but results are not expected until 2009. (from Billboards in the Digital Age)

More Digital Billboards Creeping Into Driver's View

By Karin Crompton , Published on 11/10/2007 in Home

IN THE HEYDAY OF ROUTE 66, THE most intricate gimmick on a billboard was the waving, mechanical arm of a gigantic, cigarette-shilling cowboy — and the federal government considered that a distraction. Now, billboard-sized TV screens have replaced the Marlboro Man with digital images that change instantly. They are “giant slide shows in the sky,” according to one critic.

Digital billboards have the capability to do everything a television can do and more, although those that fall under federal jurisdiction cannot use video. Advertisers now buy time slots on digital billboards the way they buy spots on television. These scenarios are technologically possible: A jackpot winner's photo shows up on the screen minutes after the Lucky 7's lineup at a casino. Or a countdown to Justin Timberlake's next concert — “Three more days 'til the Future Sex/Love Show!” — is part of the rotation.

The billboards are at the heart of an intensified debate between those who consider themselves watchdogs of the federal Highway Beautification Act and billboard owners and advertisers. The technology is advancing rapidly while states struggle to determine whether the latest innovations comply with the act, which was passed in 1965. The federal law was meant to control the number and style of billboards along interstate highways. States that don't comply with its terms can lose 10 percent of their federal highway aid. “This is something that all states are hassling with, because technology moves faster than regulation,” said Walter Keuenhoff, supervisor of outdoor advertising control for the New Hampshire Department of Transportation. “You figure our statutes were created in the '60s, and this wasn't even thought of at the time. “The whole idea of 'no moving parts' (in federal law) was so you wouldn't have the Marlboro Man waving at you. So they didn't think they could have the Marlboro Man waving at you on a TV screen.”

Connecticut allowed the digital billboards by law in 2003, despite objections from the state departments of transportation and public safety. Seven state-permitted digital billboards are operating in Hartford and six in Bridgeport, with images that switch every six seconds, according to the DOT. None is located in southeastern Connecticut. The state transportation department has received a few complaints dealing with the brightness of two billboards on Interstate 84 and one on Interstate 91 in Hartford. A department spokesman said that the sign companies have brought the signs into compliance. A Sept. 25 memo from the Federal Highway Administration declared that digital billboards are allowed under federal law. Many states, including Connecticut, had already allowed the digital billboards before the federal ruling, but others sought clarification from the highway administration.

The highway administration is commissioning a study, to be completed in 2009, on the “safety attributes” of the new billboards and whether they pose a distraction. Kevin Fry, president of Scenic America, a nonprofit organization that works to protect the “visual character” of the countryside, said his organization had asked the highway administration in July for a moratorium on digital billboards pending further study. Instead, said Fry, the agency didn't communicate with Scenic America again before issuing the September memo.

Fry compared the billboards to cigarettes: deadly if used as intended. “They cannot be safe and (also) be an effective advertising medium,” Fry said. Fry also questioned why the highway administration would issue a memo allowing the digital billboards, then conduct a study of their safety. Advertisers, however, love the digital billboards because they can be updated daily or even hourly. And supporters say they carry a public benefit as well. “The beautiful thing about them is they allow so many public safety applications, law enforcement applications and value to the advertiser, all in one,” said Jeff Golimowski, spokesman for the Outdoor Advertisers Association of America. In March, Connecticut State Police reached an agreement with the Outdoor Advertising Association of Connecticut to use the digital billboards to broadcast Amber Alerts, highway warnings alerting the public to an abduction. In some areas the billboards are wired into emergency preparedness systems. During the Minneapolis bridge collapse in August, Golimowski said, all the digital billboards in the area switched to traffic information.

There are about 700 digital billboards nationally, according to the Outdoor Advertisers; that compares to more than 450,000 traditional billboard “faces,” Golimowski said. The Highway Beautification Act was designed to protect the landscape and to minimize driver distraction. Technology has forced authorities to continually update the definitions of words like “flashing” and “intermittent,” both of which the act prohibits. In 1996, the Federal Highway Administration issued a memo allowing the use of “tri-vision signs,” traditional billboards with triangular slats that rotate to show three different images. The digital billboards, the agency said in that memo, fall into the same category of “changeable messages ... fixed for a reasonable time period.” Thus, the 2007 memo says, digital billboards “do not constitute a moving sign.”

Golimowski, of the Outdoor Advertisers, said a number of studies demonstrate the billboards are “safety neutral,” and that drivers don't take their eyes off the road longer than they do for a traditional billboard. Fry, of Scenic America, discredits some of those studies. He added that drivers are wired to watch a digital billboard longer than a traditional ad because they are looking for the next image. Doug Hecox, a spokesman with the Federal Highway Administration, said the agency considered Scenic America's moratorium request but ultimately decided a clarification for states about the flashing or intermittent lights was all that was needed. He added: “The study is to determine whether there's a risk to motorists. Until that study is complete, we didn't feel it was appropriate to make policy on gut instinct. We need to wait for data to make decisions.” Fry said once the billboards are erected, they are hard to remove. If a sign is declared nonconforming or needs to be moved or changed, he said, the takedown must be paid for in cash rather than in payments. The cost includes the value of the structure plus any advertising revenue.

Golimowski said his association expects the number of digital billboards to grow gradually, at a rate of a few hundred per year nationally. He said the billboards will never include moving video or flashing words and that areas like southeastern Connecticut will not become inundated. In New Hampshire, a state with only 500 billboards, Keuenhoff employs a simple logic. “I don't think it's gonna be a big issue in New Hampshire,” he said, “only because the advertising companies don't want to irritate the people traveling down the roads.”

k.crompton@theday.com
www.fhwa.dot.gov/realestate/oacprog.htm
www.oaaa.org
www.scenic.org