LA homeowners fight the glare of digital billboards

(photo: Jay L. Clendenin/ Los Angeles Times/ December 17, 2009)

The Los Angeles Times covers the unfortunate consequences of digital billboards in Los Angeles. As one member of a neighborhood group fighting three digital billboards laments about lowered property values, "would you buy a home with one of these things in your backyard?"

Season's Greetings

Click here for a scenic Season's Greetings slide show from Scenic America.

Venezuela Sets Billboard Curfew to Save Energy

Amidst an energy crisis due to low water levels at one of the world's largest hyrdoelectric dams, Venezuela is instituting a range of energy-saving measures. Included in the far-reaching effort to reduce energy demand is a midnight curfew on billboards. It's not a new idea; President Carter proposed such a curfew during the 1970's energy crisis. It's time to turn off the lights on billboards.

Bye Bye Billboards!

(photo: Bates Area Civic Association)

Recently we brought you a story from the District of Columbia about determined residents of the Shaw neighborhood targetting illegal billboards that were a nuisance to the community. We're now pleased to pass along news that all of the offending signs have been removed! Congratulations to the dedicated citizens who successfully brought the issue to the attention of city hall and to city leaders for finally enforcing the sign ordinance!

In the News

- Park Ridge (NW Chicagoland) citizens object to proposed billboards near residential areas (Journal Online)

- LA council vote stops billboards from converting to digital (KPCC Public Radio)

- Rapid City nixes digital billboard conversion on Mount Rushmore Road (Rapid City Journal)

- New Jersey residents oppose proposed cell tower adjacent to scenic byway and preserved farmland (myCentralJersey.com)

Billboards and the Night Sky

Standard billboard with wasted light (photo: IDA, via National Geographic Kids)

To follow up on yesterday's post from earlier this week on the energy use of billboards, it also is important to note the negative impact billboards have upon the Night Sky. Billboards generally are lit in an upwards, wasteful manner that unnecessarily spill light into the night sky and neighboring properties. To find out more about outdoor lighting and the importance of preserving the wonders of the Night Sky, visit our friends at the International Dark-Sky Association.

U.S. Supreme Court Turns Down Billboard Appeal; Big Victory for Cities

Illegal Metro Lights/ FUEL street-level ads (photo: Coalition to Ban Billboard Blight)

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday provided good news to scenic advocates across the country as it refused to hear an appeal by a billboard company challenging Los Angeles' prohibition of billboards in 2002. The closely watched case addressed important free speech issues and the billboard company was assisted by noted consitutional scholar Laurance Tribe.

The federal district court judge agreed with Metro Lights claim that LA violated its free speech rights because the city itself generating revenue from a sanctioned "street furniture" billboard program on public property. However, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that ruling and yesterday's decision by the Supreme Court is another important victory for the right of communities to control outdoor advertising. While scenic advocates generally disagree with street furniture ads on public property, the decision of a city to engage in the practice should not prohibit it from being able to control visual clutter by banning billboards elsewhere.

Scenic America notes that Metro Lights (now called FUEL) has been a litigious thorn in the side of large cities across the nation. It has placed thousands of illegal signs in Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, New York, Washington, D.C. and elsewhere, and its threat of legal action against any removal of its illegal signs has had the intended effect of delaying municipal action.

Yesterday's Supreme Court decision should now encourage these cities to restore the visual character of their communities by reigning in rouge advertising companies like Metro Lights. And as the LA-based Coalition to Ban Billboard Blight notes, a court ordered disgorgement of the huge profits Metro Lights/ FUEL made in LA with these illegal signs would send a strong message.

R U SRIUS?

" B MOR EFCNT" (photo: John Regenbogen)

"SAV NRGY" (photo: John Regenbogen)

Saint Louis electric utility giant AmerenUE is running a multiple billboard campaign supposedly encouraging energy efficiency. Here's a suggestion: turn off the lights!

The lighting for standard billboards, including the ones depicted above, typically use four lamps that generate about 1,600 watts of energy use per sign on average. With an estimated 500,000 billboard structures nationwide, the cumulative energy consumption of the outdoor advertising sector is certainly an eye-popping figure and worthy of analysis.

AmerenUE's environmentally-unfriendly 24/7 billboard campaign (ironically being run during the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference) not only is polluting the atmosphere unnecessarily, it is also disturbing the night sky and, if industry practice holds true, will result in thousands of square feet of vinyl wrap eventually tossed into local landfills.

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UPDATE: At least AmerenUE apparantly is not using even more energy-intensive digital billboards for its campaign. According to the Central Texas -Balcones Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council, the carbon output of a single digital billboard is roughly the same as 49 traditional billboards or 13 homes!

Texas DOT Advances Good Street Design, CSS

Kaid Benfield at the NRDC's Switchboard blog has a great post succinctly informing readers of the benefits of Context Sensitive Solutions in designing walkable and attractive communities and how TXDOT, of all places, is leading the way for state agencies.

TXDOT is the first to officially adopt guidelines set forth in a new manual written by the Congress for New Urbanism and the Institute for Transportation Engineers. The manual, CSS in designing Major Urban Thoroughfares for Walkable Communities, is a great tool for helping both transportation designers and community advocates implement effective projects that make communities more livable and beautiful.

With its central role in the seminal release of Flexibility in Highway Design FHWA manual in 1997, Scenic America played a critical role in helping the transportation design profession first move away from a rigid, "design/defend" process to a more progressive orientation that involves the public and better meets community needs. What was once seen as somehow heretical within the profession is quickly becoming main stream common sense.

St. Petersburg City Council Delays Digital Billboard Proposal

The Saint Petersburg City Council ended hopes of Clear Channel to secure an agreement by the end of the year to allow it to erect 10 digital billboards in exchange for the removal of traditional billboards elsewhere in the city.

Clear Channel worked in secret with the outgoing mayor on the proposal for several years, and neighborhood groups and council members were naturally concerned about the proposal unveiled to the public at the end of the mayor's term. The city's Development Review Commission and Planning and Visioning Commission both had previously recommended that the council delay action on the proposal so that a more thorough review could be conducted. The Saint Petersburg Council of Neighborhood Associations had expressed the common sense argument that a rush to approve digital billboards ahead of the upcoming release of the FHWA safety study on digitals was premature.