Billboard rules are a good compromise

Good for the Wichita City Council and the owners of electronic billboards for working together and agreeing to dim the signs at night. The ordinance, which the Council unanimously approved Tuesday, is a good balance between the rights of businesses and those of motorists and neighbors concerned about distracting lights.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee

4 Comments

  1. Kev
    Posted August 8, 2007 at 5:51 am | Permalink

    I have often thought about signs and the ugliness they contribute to the landscape. I don’t think they should just pick on LED signs but what about billboards and oversized floerescent signs? You really don’t realize how ugly signs are until you dribe through a place like Peachtree City Georgia where they are banned. Businesses are only allowed to have a sign that is about 3 feet high and lit by a floodlight. No billboards, no LED and no floerescent lights are allowed to be visible. And the place looks absolutely beautiful without them.

  2. delsol
    Posted August 8, 2007 at 7:34 am | Permalink

    The lighted signs that flash are far worse than plain old billboards, though those need to be regulated too.

    Thanks for the comparison to P’tree City, Kev. It’s good someone has noted other communities’ approaches to these things and what a difference can be seen–for more than just aesthetic reasons. Did you see the Georgia Tech professor’s lecture on parks to the Wichita CC that has been braodcast recently on the city channel? They studied changes in landscaping and appearance in several urban housing developments, demonstrating that increased green space–even using the COLOR green–has a pronounced mollifying effect on crime in those housing projects.

    What kind of effect on crime would these blinking, flashing LED signs have, do you think?

    When we increase the seediness factor in our community, we decrease the livability factor–in tangible ways.

  3. Old Manor Road
    Posted August 8, 2007 at 9:06 am | Permalink

    I will NOT do business with one who has one of those LED signs that is a distraction to my driving! And I have told them so. COX cable had been using the sign at Central and Rock for a couple of months. I phoned COX and told them so. A couple of days later they toned it down! Of course, I was probably just one of many who filed a complaint about that hideous sign! The point being, if the sign is a distraction point it out to the offender! Don’t just grumble about it!

  4. Kev
    Posted August 8, 2007 at 8:34 pm | Permalink

    “Thanks for the comparison to P’tree City, Kev. It’s good someone has noted other communities’ approaches to these things and what a difference can be seen–for more than just aesthetic reasons. Did you see the Georgia Tech professor’s lecture on parks to the Wichita CC that has been braodcast recently on the city channel? ”

    I don’t live in Wichita. I was born and raised there. I live in Lithia Springs Georgia. But Georgia Tech is part of my work area and I am on the campus servicing cell phone equipment alot. I never really though much about signs until driving through Fayette County and Peachtree City one night and seeing that, in a suburban setting, you would actually see the moon and stars at night without the landscape being blighted by signs. And the funny thing is, even with the small signs lit only by a single floodlight, I had zero trouble seeing the Kroger store, the gas stations and KFC. That is what led me to the fact that signs contribute lots of ugliness to the urban landscape. I think that they should be banned anyplace but in downtown areas of cities.