P&Z calls for stricter rules regarding digital billboards

Think a billboard like this might prove a distraction to motorists driving 70 miles an hour?
 Our Planning and Zoning  folks are not all that concerned about the possibility.

Largely ignoring the suggestion of safety concerns caused by digital billboards, the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission recommended tonight the city council pass an ordinance allowing for more of these types of signs along I-35 in Kyle, albeit with stricter limitations than those recommended by the city’s staff.

The ordinance recommended by the commission would require that those wishing to erect a digital billboard would have to remove four square feet of existing billboard facings for every square foot of digital they wish to install. City staff’s recommendation called for a 2-to-1 ratio. The commission also voted to require that the minimum distance between the digital signs be at least 3,000 feet. The city wished to cut that distance in half.

During discussion on the ordinance, commissioner Mike Rubsam, who temporarily relinquished his chairmanship of the commission to fellow commissioner Mike Wilson because Rubsam was suffering from a mild virus, suggested that digital billboards would make Kyle "more attractive to businesses." That marked the first time I ever heard anyone suggest billboards make a community more attractive to anyone or anything. In fact, I’m old enough to remember when then First Lady Lady Bird Johnson made ridding highways of billboards a major part of her Beautify America campaign.

Now it’s time for some truth in advertising here. The safety concerns were raised by yours truly. In fact, during the public hearing that preceded the commission’s discussion of the ordinance, I made the following presentation:

"I want to take this opportunity to request that you table this item until such time that the city staff can prepare and present to you a thorough study on the effects of driver distraction in general and specifically driver distraction caused by digital billboards on interstate highways with speed limits of 70 miles an hour. Previous studies exist than can be used as starting points such as a Virginia Tech University study commissioned by the National Highway Safely Administration on the effects of driver distraction, a study by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation that revealed a significant increase in traffic accidents in a three year period after digital billboards were erected, and, perhaps most important of all, a study by the Swedish National Road and Transportation Administration called Effects of Electronic Billboards on Driver Distraction that resulted in the Swedish government ordering the removal of all digital billboards.

It doesn’t make any sense that, during a time when governments are taking steps to ban texting and other uses of mobile devices while driving, while a "click it or ticket" campaign has been started to promote safety and while increased efforts are underway to get drunk drivers off our highways, that Kyle may be taking steps in the opposite direction to make that stretch of I-35 through our city – a stretch that we all know is going to become increasingly more congested – far less safe. I would hate to see our legacy become that the stretch of I-35 between Buda and San Marcos became known as Kyle’s Killer Corridor.

However, if you are absolutely determined to take steps that all available evidence shows would make our city less safe, I would encourage you to strengthen the proposed ordinance in the following ways:

First: Require that for every square foot of digital billboard sign face, a minimum of three square feet of traditional sight face must be removed. This is far from being unprecedented. Dallas, where I just relocated from, and Cheyenne, Wyoming have a three-to-one ratio. So do our neighbors to the south, San Antonio, with the exception that if the planned digital sign is to be smaller in area than the billboard it will be replacing, only two square feet of traditional sign space needs to be removed. Orlando, Florida has a four-to-one ratio, in Gulfport, Mississippi, it’s six-to-one and the ordinance in Tampa, Florida mandates the removal of 10 square feet of traditional billboard space for every one square foot of digital space proposed. (Editor’s Note: As stated above, P&Z exceeded even my recommendation, approving a 4-to-1 ratio.)

Second: A requirement that digital signs may not have a height that is greater than the signs it is replacing.

Third: No digital billboard may be located within 300 feet of any property that is zoned in such a manner to allow residences – either single family or multi-family – to be located on that property.

Fourth: No digital billboard may be located within 500 feet from a historic district or a city park or lake.

Fifth: Messages on digital billboards must be static, with no moving or flashing images.

And sixth: All digital billboards must be equipped with light sensors, which dim the billboards based on ambient light conditions. It makes absolutely no sense to have these billboards shine at the same intensity during the nighttime hours as they do in the daytime."

Following my presentation, commissioner Timothy Kay actually made a motion to table discussion of the ordinance until the commission could receive a study identical to the one I recommended. His motion died for lack of a second. Kay, incidentally, was the only commissioner who voted against sending the amended ordinance to the full city council for additional debate and possible passage.

And maybe this is a word of caution, maybe not, but I plan on making a very similar presentation to the City Council on this subject. I believe if I’m going to write about these actions after the fact, I ought to have the courage of my beliefs to make those beliefs public before the fact..