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Sign WorldWhat other nations can teach us about sign control.

B y J e f f S o u l e , f a i c p

In Rotterdam

Netherlands

(left), and

other

countries,

commercial

signs are

allowed in

the public

right of wayJefSoule

The ederal Highway Beautication Act isnow 45 years old, but the Federal HighwayAdministration is still searching or ways tomeet the spirit o the law. The latest eortin that search involved a traveling team o12 experts representing the agency, plus the American Association o State Highwayand Transportation Ocials, the OutdoorAdvertising industry, Scenic America, andthe American Planning Association.

The team spent two weeks in what

FHWA called a Scan o Outdoor Advertis-ing survey to learn about control schemes

in ve other countries. Because I served asan advisor to an FHWA-sponsored eortconducted by the U.S. Institute or Envi-

ronmental Confict Resolution in 2006, Iwas asked to join the current team to repre-

sent the public interestthe thought beingthat APAs interests broadly represent theinterests o citizens, especially at the local

level.The institutes report, completed in Jan-

uary 2007, has led, among other things, toa series o educational workshops or statehighway ocials and review o organiza-

tional relationships.The team looked at a variety o issues

in Australia, Sweden, the Netherlands,Scotland, and England, including laws,regulations, policies, and enorcement;

community and citizen involvement; proj-ect management; environmental impacts,

economic benets, and revenue generation;and saety. What ollows is a brie report on

what the team learned.

Local planners and the public

In most o the nations we visited, therewas only a loose connection between local

planners and the ederal highway agencycharged with administering outdoor adver-

tising regulations. Unlike the U.S., though,

where local governments have no permit-ting authority or signs covered by ederal

law, local jurisdictions in those ve nationscan exercise control over signs outside the

highway authoritys purview.In the U.S., local planners can do very

little about how the Highway Beautica-

tion Act is administered because the law isessentially a deal between the FHWA and

state transportation departments. In Aus-tralia, Sweden, Holland, and the UK, mostauthority over sign control resides either

with local government or it is sharedbe-

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On A RelAted tOPiccause, in some places, the highway authori-

ty is required to consult with the local juris-diction in the permit process. In Brisbane,

Australia, or example, the highway agencyis promoting an advertising managementplan, ocusing on outdoor signs, to incor-

porate into local plans.Most agencies in the ve nations we vis-

ited issue permits without giving the publica chance to comment or even be inormedo applications. It was oten assumed that

the local government in question was re-sponsible or public involvement. To some

degree, that is changing.In New South Wales, Australia, the

Roads and Trac Authority was surprised

by the degree o public protest over a signproposed or a scenic area called the Blue

Mountains. Ultimately the permit was notissued, and the agency has subsequentlyramped up its own public education and

outreach eorts. In the Netherlands, theRoad Directorate has adopted a policy-

making system that is more open to publiccomment and not just a technical review.

The survey team agreed that these ap-proaches may hold lessons or U.S. plan-ners at all levels o government as they seek

to make administration o the ederal high-way law more eective.

Safety focus

While saety was just one o the issues the

team reviewed, it drew a lot o attention

during the roundtable discussions withour international hosts. Research suggeststhat too much distraction can be a tracsaety hazard, yet there is no evidence that

signage is directly responsible or increas-ing accidents.

That said, most transportation experts we met managed signage under the as-sumption that too many signs, both o-

cial and commercial, could contribute toan overall unsae condition, and they have

developed various measures to reduce orprevent signs in areas where driving con-

ditions were deemed complex or stressul,such as high-speed merge areas or traccircles. In Victoria, Australia, advertising

signs are prohibited with two kilometers oan interchange.

Visual amenities

Every country we visited made some pro-

vision or conservation o views. These in-cluded historic districts, scenic landscapes,

vistas, world heritage sites, and parks. In

dga dsrss

Advertising signs are a lucrative business, and digital signs raise the stakes even higher. Digital

billboards can change messages every our to 10 seconds, accommodating multiple advertisersand multiple rentson the same structure. Even states could get in on the action. Earlier this

year, The Sacramento Bee estimated that Caliornia could earn $2 billion over 20 years or convert-ing 500 public reeway signs to digital billboards.

Digital billboards are expensive, averaging $200,000 to $300,000 apiece, according to the

Outdoor Advertising Association o America, but the potential revenue stream makes theinvestmentand requent litigationseem well worth the eort rom the industrys perspective.

The industry touts the fexibility o digital signs, which can be changed quickly to announceAmber Alerts, local sports scores, and other public messages. The opposition, such as ScenicAmerica, notes the aesthetic, environmental, and saety issues involved with digital billboards.

Digital billboards are designed to distract; i they dont grab the drivers attention, theyhave ailed. Jerry Wachtel, an engineering psychologist who has studied the issue, says that

taking ones eyes o the road or just 1.6 seconds leads to a substantially higher crash rate. Boththe brightness and the movement associated with digital billboards attract drivers attention orlonger than thatand dramatically longer than conventional billboards, Wachtel notes.

There are no conclusive studies on the potential trac saety risks o digital billboards in theU.S. However, the Federal Highway Administration will soon release the ndings o a research

study that addresses the issue. Meanwhile, Wachtel and others urge communities to exercise cau-

tion and adopt moratoria on new digital billboards while they study the issue, because once thesesigns are erected, high compensation costs make them almost impossible to remove.

Several cities have done just that, including Los Angeles, El Paso, and St. Louis. A number ostates and communities have enacted outright bans on such signs: Maine; Vermont; Montana;

Pima County, Arizona; Amarillo, Texas; Durham, North Carolina; Knoxville, Tennessee; andmost recently, Denver.

I communities do allow such signs, Wachtel advises that they look careully at how toregulate operational characteristics, including luminance level, how quickly the messagechanges, and location.

A wave o billboard permit lawsuits has hit the courts in recent years. Bill Brinton, an attor-ney with Scenic America, explains how the sign industry typically works. A little-known company

comes into city hall with a stack o sign permit applications, knowing that the municipal signcode prohibits either the type or location o signs it wishes to erect.

Rather than lobby or ordinance changes or apply or variances, the company waits or theapplications to be denied, then les a lawsuit to invalidate the entire sign code. I the court tossesout the code, the company will ask the court to approve all o its applications, along with damages

and attorneys ees. To avoid litigation, the company will oer to settle the case i the city approvesonly a raction o the sign permits.

Courts have repeatedly afrmed cities First Amendment right to ban billboards, and to limit

their size, location, and placement. Knowing this, the sign company will not attack the constitution-ality o the sign code, but rather other sections in the code. I the judge invalidates the whole code,

the company claims that the resulting regulatory vacuum entitles it to erect whatever it wants.The Sixth Circuit rejected the billboard shakedown in the cities o Erlanger and Fort Wright,

Kentucky, in 2009; the Ninth Circuit rejected the same strategy in Lemon Grove and Chula

Vista, Caliornia, in 2006; and the Eighth Circuit turned away a similar ploy that year in an EdenPrairie, Minnesota, case. Since 2004, APA and its chapters have led amicus bries in 14 sign cases

around the country, seeking to end assaults on local governments ability to regulate the signindustry. (See www.planning.org/amicus.)

The courts have, without exception, ound in avor o the municipality, concluding that a signcompany cannot challenge sections o the sign code that are irrelevant to the denial o its permitapplication.

A word o caution: Planners should periodically audit their local sign codes to ensure they arecurrent with the evolving technology. Attorneys knowledgeable in First Amendment sign law

jurisprudence might be a wise investment, too.

Lora Lucero,aicp

n luro s a a-us aory a h or o APAs Planning & Environmental Law. Sh s h sa aso o h APA Aus

cura co.

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R E S O U R C E S

FROm APA APA has pubsh ay aras abou sgs or h yars,

ug wo Pag Asory Sr rpors: Street Graphics

and the Law(PAS Rpor 527), by da makr wh ArwBru a Wa ewa, aAesthetics, Community Character,

and the Law(PAS Rpor 489/490), by chrs durks a

mahw Gb. S, oo, Sro, Ro, a Fash, by Jas Kroh Jr.

(Planning, Apr 2009). th APA boar o rors ra a poy

gu o bboar oros 1997: hp://pag.org/poy/

gus/aop/bboars.h.

AvOidinG cOnFlict. th a rpor ro h U.S. isu or eroa co

Rsouo, op Jauary 2007, has , aog ohr

hgs, o a srs o uaoa workshops or sa hghway

ofas a rw o orgazaoa raoshps. S h rpor

a www.r.go/p/oa.p.

Victoria, the authority initiated an ambi-

tious corridor design pilot program to in-corporate context, landscape, and art into

an overall program or one o the busiesturban motorway corridors.

The Netherlands demonstrated this

type o regional thinking in its A12, whichis part o the European Unions eort to

designate certain trans-European highwaysas green corridors. This strategy identi-ed several visual typologies and adjusted

the sign permit process accordingly. Mostnations regulated vegetation removal and

some require specic landscape amenities.There were no explicit standards or the

design o the sign itsel, beyond size, lumi-

nescence, and location. We didnt observeoutdoor advertising signs in closely spaced

clusters, but Brisbane does speciy a mini-mum space between such signs, allowingabout seven o them per mile. Content was

similarly considered beyond the regulatorypale or the highway agencies, but oten

controlled by a general decency kind oboard that could make such judgments on

the content.

Management and regulation

Most countries recognized the need oraccurate inventories o permitted signs,

though ew had created such databases,kept them up to date, or made them acces-sible to the public. One successul control

used by various agencies, however, was lim-

iting the term o a sign permit. In Australia,permits expire ater 15 years.

The U.S. could take a page rom other

countries regulatory playbooks by uni-ormly requiring that local governmentssign o on state DOT permits. Some states

such as Maryland already do this, but it israrely a meaningul collaborationmore

oten it is a ormality that states must checko on their orms.

Illegal signs

Ocials in every nation we visited ex-

pressed some level o rustration over theirinability to remove illegal signs. Lack osta, unding, and unclear legal authority

were among the issues preventing sign re-moval. Lack o inormation is also a prob-

lem, as it is in the U.S. FHWAs most recentdata on the number o legal nonconorm-

ing and illegal signs regulated under theHBA dates rom 1996.

One approach that seemed to work,

however, was a comprehensive campaign to

remove illegal signs in a particular neigh-

borhood in London, which was part o abroader economic revitalization eort. Thecity o London does not require compensa-

tion or the removal o most illegal signs.

New technologies and revenue schemes

Everyone we met had some concerns about

new technologies such as scrolling, digital,and ull-motion signs and what their impactmight be on motorists and the landscape.

In Sweden, the highway agency conductedan experiment with 12 existing digital signsinside the right o way, although the agency

had little control over their placement. Itssurvey o drivers, however, yielded mixed

results: About one-third o the responses were positive toward the signs, one-third

were neutral, and one-third negative. Many o the countries we visited are

looking at signs in their rights o way as

revenue generators, although New South Wales is the most aggressive in promot-

ing signs as part o its business strategy; aspecial oce within its commercial divisiondoes these promotions. The Roads and

Highways Authority o New South Walesis a member o the Outdoor Media Asso-

ciation. The city o Glasgow had the most

thorough presentation and careully docu-

mented approach to gaining revenue romsign contracts. It did a thorough RFP with

strict guidelines and established a ve-year

review or perormance. Marketing the public realm, however,

carries some serious concerns and policyissues rom a public interest perspective.

Toronto just passed a regulation taxingormerly illegal signs and handing the rev-

enue over to arts programs. Will those or-

ganizations now promote more billboards?

Glasgow helps pay or waynding signs inhistoric areas with revenue rom signs in

nonhistoric areas. Is this air to the resi-dents o the nonhistoric neighborhoods?

Whats next?

The teams nal report, due out later this

year, will contain recommendations in eacharea we studied. Several steps can be taken

in the meantime. For one, planners shouldlook into whether their state requires localsign-o on sign permits.

Another option is to advocate or theU.S. to remove its June 1, 1991, rule, under

which 260,800 miles o existing Federal AidPrimary roads were grandathered under

the HBA, even though the National High-way System was reduced to 156,500 milesin 1995. The sign industry has made it a

policy not to revisit the HBA, so this may

be a good time or the ederal governmentto take that step. Such a change, however,would require local jurisdictions to step uptheir own regulatory controls, but at least

that would now be an option.Without reducing the amount o mile-

age under the Highway Beautication Actin this way, or strengthening the ability andengagement o local municipalities, the

control o signage will remain rmly in thehands o the FHWA and state DOTs. In

that event, local planners will need to pur-

sue changes to the way their state adminis-ters the HBA in order to gain any measure

o control. We can take some comort inknowing that other countries have similar

struggles in managing outdoor advertising.

n J Sou s APAs ror o ourah a r-

aoa progras.