City may restrict signs' brightness

[Erik Sine]

BY BRENT D. WISTROM AND DEB GRUVER

The Wichita Eagle

When Donnie Hedrick moved to Wichita in the early 1950s, the city's buildings glowed and blinked with neon signs.

Now 70 years old and living in Severy, Hedrick fondly recalls a blinking sign on North Broadway showing a fat police officer tossing a Pepsi Cola to a skinnier one.

"It was amazing to see this thing," he said.

Those were in the days when $50 a week was a good wage, he said.

"Times change," he said.

Now LED signs are getting popular in Wichita, and they're brighter and flashier than the neons that hummed in the 1950s -- and they aren't talked about so fondly.

Some people say the signs distract drivers and are just plain annoying.

Prompted by such complaints, the City Council is considering requiring sign owners to dim bright advertisements and require any new signs to have dimming controls.

The city may also ban LED signs from historic buildings and historic districts.

Hedrick said LED signs don't distract him any more than other signs -- they're just a newer version of neons.

But George Platt, president of the city's Historic Preservation Board, said there's a clear difference between the neons of yesteryear and the LED signs of today.

The neons were used to identify buildings, he said, and were not planted on the side of the road to entice drivers to stop in and buy something.

When talking about the distracting quality of signs, there is little evidence to show what effect they have on drivers.

In 2003, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation examined how LED billboards affect drivers. But studies they looked at offered no clear conclusions.

"Research on the issue of electronic ads causing driver distraction would suggest that the jury is still out," according to the report.

John Lay, of George Lay Signs Inc., said requiring dimming shouldn't be a problem for most sign owners.

The signs range in cost from $150 for the small indoor ones, to $10,000 to $50,000 for larger ones, and up to $500,000 for the huge billboards that almost look like a TV screen.

Lay said that he puts the signs below cell phone use, smoking, eating and kids in the back seat on the list of driving distractions.

Judy Dillard, a member of the District 3 Advisory Board, said she thinks the city needs to restrict the signs at night.

"I am so concerned about those that are so large and bright as to attract your immediate attention," Dillard said. "They do bother me a bit at night."

She doesn't think the city should ban the signs, but she is worried about their proliferation.

As for the signs' purpose--to influence her buying decisions -- Dillard said the signs "make me angrier than they do draw me to them."

One of the most recognizable LED signs is at Central and Rock Road and owned by Clear Channel Outdoor Wichita, which features a new advertisement every 10 seconds.

Ron Blue, president of Clear Channel Outdoor Wichita, said he supports efforts to regulate the signs, particularly dimming them at night.

"We have adhered to that philosophy since the day we put it up," he said of the Central and Rock Road billboard behind Starbucks. "I firmly support what the city's trying to do and that is to get our industry and get the folks that are going to be putting these up to understand that there's a responsibility that we have and make sure they're not burning too bright at night."

However, Blue said, no studies have proven that the signs are distracting to drivers.

"I think there's a lot of things that are more distracting to drivers -- like cell phones," he said with a laugh while talking on a cell phone while driving.

Clear Channel runs its Central and Rock Road sign at 90 percent of its brightness capacity during the day and 30 percent at night, he said.

"We're reducing two-thirds of its strength at night," he said, adding that the company also takes daylight saving time into account.

Blue said Clear Channel has plans for six more LED billboards in Wichita.

Carl Mandina advertises specials at his Air Capital Pawnshop on a flashing LED sign that he owns.

He's had the sign for a couple of years and doesn't want the city to regulate such advertisements.

The sign runs 24 hours a day, every day, featuring red lettering.

He changes the message each day to try to entice people to visit his shop at Harry and Hillside.

The most common comments he gets about the sign are from other business owners who stop by to ask where he bought it, he said. He ordered it from an out-of-state outfit.

No one has complained about the sign, he said.

"I've had a lot of people tell me it's bright at night, but obviously they're reading it," he said.

[B.O.P.]

I agree: The LED 'reader' boards that have most, if not all of the modules lit at the same time are too bright at night or early morning (before sunrise, which is when I usually see them). Add to this too much copy crammed into an area that is not large enough and you end up with a big obtrusive spotlight with a message that cannot be easily read. However, that is not to say LED's are brighter than neon. If you lined up row after row of neon so it was almost touching each other and enough of it to cover the same area, the resulting light would be even brighter and more obtrusive.

[DAVE THE NEON GUY]

Very well stated Mark. Maybe the LED guys will quit trying to simulate the job of Neon and find a way to harness their energy in a more productive way. Go to any Technical School or College Entry that has a LED Reader board and they too will see that they have created the very animal that will seal their fate....... TOO DAMN BRIGHT TO READ.