What are your thoughts on proposed changes to the laws regarding digital signs?

Changing digital signs have been shown to lead to distracted driving, which can increase the risk of accidents. Some residents and local businesses have also expressed a desire for fewer and slower digital signs in order to preserve Provo's aesthetic. The Council’s Sign Committee wants to balance safety and aesthetics with the need to help its local businesses stay competitive. It has drafted proposed amendments to Provo City Code to protect Provo residents, preserve our city’s history and atmosphere, and support businesses. The committee would appreciate your feedback.

The hold time for digital signs on state roads, which generally have higher speeds, is 8 seconds. The most common hold time in neighboring cities is 8 seconds. The highway minimum hold time is designed so that motorists rarely see more than one message change per sign. To achieve a similar goal in the city, where motorists, cyclists and pedestrians encounter digital signs at lower speeds and in greater numbers, the committee felt that short hold times need to be substantially longer than 8 seconds.

Provo distinguishes between short hold and long hold areas, and prohibits digital signs in primarily residential zones. In short hold time areas, which are predominantly commercial, the primary objective for increasing the minimum hold time is traffic safety. In long hold time areas, there is an additional emphasis on aesthetics to minimize the number of message changes encountered not only by motorists, but also by cyclists and pedestrians.

The Sign Committee is proposing the following changes to hold times, hold time areas, and areas where digital signs would be prohibited:

Note: These proposals would apply only to digital signs that are on a business’s property (not signs on public school properties or billboards) and whose message can be changed by electronic means on a fixed display screen composed of a series of LEDs, fiber optics, plasma displays, light bulbs, or other illumination devices.

This survey will ask about each of these three hold time categories in turn.

Please take the survey here. Registered users of Open City Hall can edit their answers up until the survey deadline.