Note from PCJ Editor Wayne Senville: To round out our coverage of the impacts of billboards, we thought it important to also hear from Scenic America, an organization that focuses -- as their President notes below -- on “preserving and enhancing the visual character of our nation’s roadways, communities, and countryside.”
Again, I encourage you to weigh in with your own views about billboards on our Linkedin group page (you need to be registered on Linkedin to access this). There have already been a wide range of interesting comments posted there.
Our previous postings related to billboards include:
- Interview with Ed McMahon about his article, "Billboards: The Case for Control"
- Article: "Billboards: The Case for Control" (available to download)
- Response from Outdoor Advertising Association of America to McMahon article
- "So You're From Vermont" -- perspectives of PCJ Editor Wayne Senville
Note: the photos included below were provided by Scenic America
Wayne Senville: Mary, you’re President of an organization called Scenic America. Can you tell us a little about what Scenic America does?
Mary Tracy: Two years ago, I became the president of Scenic America, an organization that I have been deeply committed to for the past twenty years. It is the only national nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving and enhancing the visual character of our nation’s roadways, communities, and countryside. We accomplish this mission through outreach and advocacy efforts, and with the help of over twenty state and local affiliates.
We are the sole national counterweight to the multi-billion dollar outdoor advertising industry, yet we are mostly a network of volunteer organizations whose financial resources are dwarfed by the industry’s. We focus our efforts where we can be most effective: helping citizens make their voices heard. When the public is allowed to speak, they voice a preference for beauty over blight.
Wayne Senville: I want to ask you a couple of questions about billboards. First of all, aren’t most billboards used by local businesses, and aren't billboards also important in promoting tourism?
Mary Tracy: According to a fact sheet prepared by the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, the three biggest users of billboards are McDonald’s, Verizon, and AT&T. All of the top 20 billboard users are large corporations, such as Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch, and US Cellular, who use billboards simply as a form of “brand reinforcement” among the traveling public. We’ve spoken with many business owners who say they’d prefer not to use billboards at all; they only use them because their competition does. They’ve told us they’d prefer a level playing field where no one is using billboards.
Additionally, the inference that billboards are essential tools for tourism agencies is just plain wrong. The four states that ban billboards all have economies highly dependent on tourism. In fact, tourism spending in Vermont rose 50 percent in the two years after the state removed its last billboard. [Source: "Vermont Travel Estimates Out-of-State Visitors." 1982. Vermont Division of Research and Statistics]. Celebrating the 30th anniversary of Maine’s billboard ban, Dana Connors, president of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce, said “It's become part of our quality of place.”
Wayne Senville: If the removal of billboards in these four states has proven to be a success, why haven’t more states joined in banning billboards?
Mary Tracy: Billboard companies and their various trade associations spend millions of dollars annually aggressively lobbying all levels of government, but in particular the industry works to influence regulation at the state level. Part of the reason for this is they receive the least amount of public scrutiny at this level; when called before city councils or local planning commissions to speak on sign ordinances, they are met with a public who is passionately anti-blight and eager to protect their neighborhoods.
Last year the industry was unsuccessful in its attempts to overturn Durham, North Carolina’s longstanding billboard ban and erect digital billboards. Since they lost that fight, they are now working on legislation that will remove local control.
In fact, there is currently a concerted effort by the billboard industry to eliminate local control over sign regulation. Bills have been introduced in four states -- Missouri, North Carolina, Florida, and Texas -- that would take control of billboards away from localities and give it to the state.
The federal government has also made it difficult for states to remove billboards. Congress has prevented states from using amortization as a tool to remove the thousands of nonconforming billboards along interstate and federal-aid primary highways, instead requiring cash compensation, the funds for which simply no longer exist.
Wayne Senville: Assuming local hands are not tied by state legislation, are there things communities can do to reduce the number of billboards?
Mary Tracy: The first and most important step to reducing sign blight is to prohibit the construction of new billboards, like thousands of communities across the country have already done. This will ultimately result in fewer billboards as some are lost to attrition, some to Mother Nature and others to development. When Houston banned new billboards in 1980, there were some 10,000 signs in the city; today, there are fewer than 3,000.
Continue reading "Interview with Mary Tracy of Scenic America about Billboards" »
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