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Friday, September 23, 2011

City Group Fights Glowing Digital Billboards in King County

Posted by Dominic Holden on Fri, Sep 23, 2011 at 6:21 AM

The King County Council intends to vote Monday on a bill that would allow digital billboards in the county's unincorporated areas, meaning outside the limits of any incorporated city. Unlike the approximately 21 billboards owned by Clear Channel in those areas, which are pasted or painted and then illuminated by lights, these digital billboards would be like giant televisions up to 14 feet tall by 48 feet wide.

"You can see them six miles away and they're the most predominant feature on the landscape," says Keep King County Beautiful volunteer Paula Rees, complaining about similar digital billboards outside San Francisco. Her group is making an eleventh-hour plea to stop what it calls a "singular request by Clear Channel Outdoor with no financial benefit." Not only energy suckers that consume the equivalent of 13-30 houses per face, she says, they're dangerously distracting for drivers.

However, the bill going to council members would require that the images be static (no flashing, blinking, or animation), that each image shine for at least eight seconds, and that transitions from one image to the next take less than two seconds.

But those concessions mean little to the group, which has posted this video taken near St. Paul, Minnesota where such a billboard SHINES THE FACE OF SEAN HANNITY into woman's house all damn night.

Rees says the council should hold back, partly because the Federal Highway Administration has yet to release a report about the impact of these billboards on traffic safety (which is expected soon). And many of the locations where Clear Channel currently has billboards is land that may soon be annexed, including land that may soon be incorporated by Burien, which bans such billboards. "My question is," Rees asks, "why let it happen now if you have to go back and deal with it after the annexation?"

Comments (19) RSS

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"the equivalent of 13-30 houses per face"? What does that even mean?

Posted by Catalina Vel-DuRay

on September 23, 2011 at 6:53 AM

Sean Hannity, you moron.

Posted by Hannity sucks, but get his name right on September 23, 2011 at 7:16 AM

You know that awful sign off I-5 shortly after you cross into Pierce County? Why on earth would the county council vote to allow that kind of visual trash in King County?

Posted by TVDinner

on September 23, 2011 at 7:40 AM

@1, just guessing here, but I think it means that for each "face" of the digital billboard, the equivalent of 13-30 households' worth of electricity is consumed.

Variables would be things like how often it changes, relative to which households with which they are comparing.

Posted by Queerly Yours on September 23, 2011 at 7:49 AM

Replace the word "billboards" with "monsters" and you've got yourself an interesting story there.

Posted by MacCrocodile on September 23, 2011 at 7:54 AM

These energy hogs do not create jobs and spoil our environment. The money goes to Texas and Wall Street. Why on this good earth should we be considering allowing giant televisions in our landscape. Once on, we can never turn them off?

Posted by seattle coach on September 23, 2011 at 8:06 AM

Showing bogus commercials exploiting women or promoting products that are bad for children's health may not be a good reason to hand over our public visual space for free.

If this was litter, it would be illegal...OH WAIT IT IS ILLEGAL right now. WHY would anyone try to say this was in the public interest and vote YES to such an obviously negative impact on our lives and our community.

Time for a new batch of county folks next election because they obviously don't care about the people, just some big corporation that they want to do a freebie handout to.

Posted by electricdriver on September 23, 2011 at 8:14 AM

@3 - EXACTLY! We have relatively eyesore free (with respect to billboards) highways. Crossing into Pierce County and driving down into Tacoma should show anyone why we shouldn't change our billboard policies in King County.

Posted by michaelp on September 23, 2011 at 8:25 AM

@3, totes agree. There are now 2 or 3 huge, bright, obnoxious signs just off I-5, just south of the King/Pierce County line. They are a visual abomination, and you can't convince me that it isn't a serious safety problem. They're terribly distracting.

These things should be banned from the planet, not just King County.

Posted by Reverse Polarity on September 23, 2011 at 8:45 AM

@3 - that sign you reference is not a digital billboard. It's some other kind (LED?). There are digital billboards throughout Pierce County and they really aren't that noticeable.

Posted by TJ on September 23, 2011 at 9:41 AM

@10 - the LED is the one you see going into Pierce County. Leaving the County, on the other side, is a digital board.

Posted by michaelp on September 23, 2011 at 9:50 AM

Obviously, Seattle needs to form it's own County and State.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on September 23, 2011 at 10:36 AM

@11 - thanks for the clarification. I've not seen the one you reference.

Posted by TJ on September 23, 2011 at 11:42 AM

It's really impressed me how relatively free of billboards we are in this area, at least with the exception of the occasional, horrendously designed anti-abortion ad. Why change things now?

Posted by keshmeshi on September 23, 2011 at 12:22 PM

Everybody go watch that video. Sure, there's a lot of crying and melodrama, but at the beginning and end of the video are snippets from what is possibly the best song I've ever heard about a city.

"Get your permit at City Hall / And build your new retaining wall / In West Saint Paul, West Saint Paul."

Posted by MacCrocodile on September 23, 2011 at 1:38 PM

@15 - Here's the whole thing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfVZHpyx1…

Posted by MacCrocodile on September 23, 2011 at 1:39 PM

One word...AMANTE.

Posted by Dod on September 23, 2011 at 7:08 PM

In the metropolis areas these would actually be nice, considering the dull Lego block style buildings such as downtown Seattle ... anything's better than those now. I say put them on the building walls here .... a welcome variation to the blandness that we are now seeing.

Posted by KittenKoder