Bloomington sets aside aesthetic objections, loosens rules for electronic billboards

Electronic signs in Edina must display a digital ad for at least 60 minutes before cycling to the next one. In Eden Prairie, it’s 20 minutes. In St. Paul, 12 seconds. And last week, Bloomington decided eight seconds is long enough.

The south metro suburb shortened its required display time, despite objections from the city’s Planning Commission, after weighing concerns over visual clutter and safety, along with a request from Clear Channel, which owns all four billboards in the city.

“Because we only have four billboards, I’m not as concerned about the aesthetic issues,” Council Member Jenna Carter said before the vote. “I have some concerns about the timing, but again, because we only have four ... overall I can support these changes.”

The standards for “dwell time,” industry-speak for the length of time an ad must be displayed, vary in Minnesota, with local governments setting the standard for signs inside their borders. For the companies that own the billboards, cycling ads more quickly means more money. For drivers along the roads, it’s unclear what interval is safest.

“Studies do show these sign types can add to driver distraction, but it’s in the realm of milliseconds, not seconds,” Bloomington Planning Manager Nick Johnson said. “That’s where it becomes more inconclusive in terms of the impacts on traffic safety.”

The move makes it more appealing for Clear Channel to convert the signs — all along interstates 494 or 35W — from static to digital.

At the City Planning Commission meeting, Matthew Weiland, Clear Channel’s local vice president of real estate and public affairs, said the move to shorten dwell time was in line with other cities and that digital billboards would add visual interest to Bloomington. Weiland did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

“We think our digitals provide a modernized, updated look,” he said at the meeting.

But not everyone agreed. Members of the city’s Planning Commission rejected the proposal, arguing the downsides outweigh the benefits.

Debate over billboards has simmered since at least the 1960s, when Lady Bird Johnson, the first lady, advocated for the Highway Beautification Act, which restricted size and spacing of billboards along federal highways.

In the 1990s, an anti-billboard movement in cities across the country, led many — including Bloomington — to ban the construction of new signs.

The onset of electronic billboards, which can flash messages from many different advertisers on one sign, presented new questions about safety in the early 2000s: Would switching ads distract drivers? And if so, does lengthening dwell time make them less distracting?

Bloomington overhauled its sign ordinance last year, allowing digital billboards for the first time, but requiring ads to stay up longer in some cases: 20 seconds for ads with graphics or longer messages and eight seconds for those with shorter messages.

The city planned to revisit that after one year, and considered a request from Clear Channel for an eight-second dwell time.

In a letter to the city, Weiland argued that eight seconds is the standard for many surrounding communities, including Minneapolis, Minnetonka, Richfield and the Metropolitan Airport Commission.

At public hearings where Weiland was the only person who asked to speak, he noted the company has safety measures on its electronic billboards, including webcams that monitor billboards, the ability to remotely shut them off and ambient light sensors that change brightness.

He touted other benefits, including the ability of local businesses to more affordably advertise without buying an entire static billboard, as well as ads provided free of charge to cities and law enforcement, including emergency and Amber alerts.

Planning commissioners were not persuaded. They voted 5-1 not to recommend the changes.

“I was really not a fan of moving our billboards to a digital format,” Planning Commission Chair Aubrey Albrecht said. “Decreasing the dwell time, I’m again not in favor ... I think if anything we should be going the other direction.”

Planning Commissioner Phil Koktan acknowledged that electronic billboards can provide more advertising opportunities for small businesses, but said the downsides overshadow the benefits.

He said he sees the airport commission electronic billboard glowing outside his window every night, and he doesn’t think the city’s hotel guests and apartment dwellers near billboards should be subjected to the same.

Still, the City Council went ahead with the changes, which also affect dwell times on electronic signs on city buildings, schools and businesses, Johnson said.

The city still does not permit animation or movement as ads switch.

At the meeting last week, Mayor Tim Busse said he appreciated the Planning Commission’s recommendation but said he doesn’t see safety problems, and hasn’t seen any raised with the airport commission’s electronic billboard.

“We’ve been back and forth on this and I’ve always thought if there was some real rock-solid evidence of crashes ... with an eight-second dwell time, I would be more concerned,” Busse said.