Billboards raise safety concerns for residents

By Randa Wagner –

A newly-formed and deter­mined cam­paign is under­way in Card­ing­ton Town­ship to cor­rect what one group con­sid­ers a seri­ous error in judgment.

“Con­cerned Cit­i­zens for Your Safety,” an advo­cacy group spear­headed by Gilead Town­ship res­i­dents Vicki Ker­man and Linda Har­vey, is seek­ing to have newly-constructed bill­boards removed at the curve on State Route 42 north of Card­ing­ton. Ker­man, Har­vey, and other group mem­bers believe the bill­boards pose a safety haz­ard on an already dan­ger­ous curve which had fatal­i­ties and numer­ous acci­dents in the recent years includ­ing a seri­ous acci­dent in late May.

“Card­ing­ton Town­ship made a mis­take in issu­ing a per­mit with­out a vari­ance,” Ker­man says. “There are sig­nif­i­cant safety issues involved with these bill­boards going up and, given the zon­ing objec­tives, there is no ques­tion as to whether a vari­ance should be (or should have been) issued. How­ever, the over­rid­ing safety issues and poten­tial lit­i­ga­tion issues when (and not if) ‘Johnny’ wraps his car around one of those steel columns are overwhelming.”

The Town­ship reg­u­la­tions state that bill­boards must be at least 30 feet from the cen­ter­line of a road­way and 150 feet from an inter­sec­tion (unless the sign is affixed to a build­ing). The bill­boards in ques­tion are more than 150 feet from the inter­sec­tions of SR 42 & TR 143 and SR 42 & CR 128, but less than 150 feet from the inter­sec­tion of CR 128 & TR 143. It would require a vari­ance to over­come, in the case of a ‘hard­ship,’ the reg­u­la­tion which, Ker­man says, was not obtained by Lind Media.

So she filed a com­plaint with the state attor­ney general’s office.

A big issue in cal­cu­lat­ing the dis­tance from inter­sec­tions has been whether or not the point at which TR 143 and CR 128 meet is a gen­uine inter­sec­tion. CCFYS main­tains it is, and cites the Ohio Revised Code’s def­i­n­i­tion: Sec­tion 4511.01(KK)-1 “Inter­sec­tion” states:

“The area embraced within the pro­lon­ga­tion or con­nec­tion of the lat­eral curb lines, or, if none, the lat­eral bound­ary lines of the road­ways of two high­ways that join one another at, or approx­i­mately at, right angles, or the area within which vehi­cles trav­el­ing upon dif­fer­ent high­ways that join at any other angle might come into con­flict. The junc­tion of an alley or dri­ve­way with a road­way or high­way does not con­sti­tute an inter­sec­tion unless the road­way or high­way at the junc­tion is con­trolled by a traf­fic con­trol device.”

Not only would traf­fic be affected by con­flict, but there is also a stop sign (a “traf­fic con­trol device”) to ensure safe traf­fic flow.

The group main­tains not only was the per­mit approved by Card­ing­ton Town­ship mis­tak­enly issued, they also believe a vari­ance should not be granted to Lind Media since plac­ing bill­boards on the tri­an­gu­lar par­cel of land at the inter­sec­tion “vio­lates Card­ing­ton Township’s zon­ing objec­tives of ‘improv­ing pub­lic safety’ and ‘pro­tect­ing the char­ac­ter and val­ues’ of the community.”

Flats Cap­i­tal, an affil­i­ate of Lind Media, pur­chased the prop­erty in May after hav­ing received both Town­ship and State per­mits to install a four-panel out­door adver­tis­ing sign. The signs are mounted on steel columns which the cit­i­zens’ group believes pose a far greater haz­ard for seri­ous injury dur­ing an acci­dent on the curve than a grassy area free of obstructions.

The whole issue first came up when Ker­man was hav­ing break­fast with friends, talk­ing about the bill­board sup­port columns that had been erected.

“Every­one was say­ing, ‘What were they think­ing? Some­one should look into this!’” Ker­man recalls. “So when I got home, I looked up Card­ing­ton Township’s zon­ing reg­u­la­tions on their web­site and found that the reg­u­la­tions on out­door adver­tis­ing were not met.”

The group made a pre­sen­ta­tion Mon­day evening to the Card­ing­ton Town­ship Trustees on the issue. Nine­teen con­cerned cit­i­zens were in atten­dance and lis­tened as Ker­man, Har­vey, her hus­band Don, Dan Bauer, Bill and Peggy Grif­fin, and Card­ing­ton Fire Chief Jim Ullum spoke to the safety haz­ard, and to the fact that the Town­ship had indeed issued the per­mit in error. The pres­i­dent from Lind Media was in atten­dance and spoke briefly to bill­board safety studies.

Also in atten­dance and accom­pa­nied by his par­ents was Thomas Bran­dum, who was severely injured in an acci­dent on the curve May 30 of this year. He, too, spoke from his experience.

A dis­cus­sion of just less than an hour took place. The mat­ter is under review by the trustees.

“We are so grate­ful to those who came out to this meet­ing,” stated Har­vey. “It’s impor­tant not only for local res­i­dents but also for those from out-of-town who travel this cor­ri­dor fre­quently, if not every day. You are elected per­son­nel. You have to answer to the peo­ple who elected you. You need to be cov­er­ing our backs. Some­body needed to say ‘We need to table this and take a look at it.’”

“Bill­boards are dis­tract­ing – you have to look at them to read them,” Har­vey con­tin­ued. “At the same time you’re try­ing to watch the road­way and traf­fic on a curve. It’s just not a good idea. And those steel columns present a huge safety haz­ard for some­one who loses con­trol of their vehi­cle, for what­ever rea­son. And it’s “not if, it’s when.”

The group’s slo­gan, “Safety is Not For Sale,” empha­sizes their belief that poten­tial prof­its from adver­tis­ing should not out­weigh the risks of the addi­tional dis­trac­tion a bill­board may pose.

Cit­i­zens inter­ested in find­ing out more about this issue can go to CCFYS’ web­site, www.billboardsafety.org. An audio record­ing of the ses­sion is avail­able on this web­site, under the tab, “Fol­low the Process.”

Posted by Randa Wagner on Aug 15 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.