Township Regulates Digital Billboards, Signs

commissioners unanimously passed an ordinance Wednesday night that regulates where roadside digital billboards and signs can be placed in the township -- and how bright their message.

The ordinance aims to minimize driver distractions, township officials have said.

The township  -- swapping digital space for conventional billboard space -- that would have ultimately reduced the number of billboards in the township. But the clause was taken out because of legal issues, board President Tori Morgan said.

Under the ordinance:

-- Digital signs are not allowed in residentially zoned areas. 

-- Digital sign display areas cannot exceed 33 percent of a sign.

--  Digital billboards are only permitted with Zoning Board approval in the highway commercial and highway commercial-I zoning districts, which is west of Route 309, along the Tilghman Street and Cetronia Road corridors.  

-- Images have to be static. For digital business signs, at least one minute has to elapse between image changes. For digital billboards, the proposed elapse time is 10 seconds.

-- Brightness has to be adjusted from dusk into dawn. The ordinance sets illumination levels.

-- Transitions have to be instant. 

-- Placement of digital signs is restricted, including at major public intersections controlled by a traffic signal.

There are no digital billboards currently in the township, though a few businesses have digital signs. The many conventional billboards in the township are clustered along major roadways such as Route 22. A concern has been the potential for those billboards to be converted to digital ones.

Safety advocates have said that digital billboards, like cell phone use while driving, draw drivers' attention away from the road, increasing the potential for accidents. However, the billboard industry has argued that studies have not demonstrated that digital billboards cause crashes. 

A representative of a billboard company who addressed the commissioners on Wednesday night also pointed out the public service value of digital billboards -- the public can be alerted immediately about abducted children, she said for example.