Legislature(1993 - 1994)
03/30/1993 01:00 PM House CRA
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
HB 26: PROHIBITED HIGHWAY ADVERTISING CHAIRMAN OLBERG referred to two amendments to HB 26; one dated 3/12/93, and the other dated 3/30/93. Number 390 REPRESENTATIVE CURT MENARD, PRIME SPONSOR OF HB 26, referred to the latter amendment dated 3/30/93 and said, "If you had a business on the highway, you would have the ability to put up a sign 25 miles on one side of it and 25 miles on the other side of it. If someone was coming along hypothetically, we could have a sign up 25 miles before you got there. Then within the intersection or close to the facility within let's say a mile, for example, they could have another sign. And then if it is on the highway, they are going to have an on highway premise sign. If it is off the highway, they would have the ability to still have that sign in there. So you would have five or four signs depending on where you are." Number 435 REPRESENTATIVE TOOHEY said, "I think we are doing exactly what we do not want to do. Why 25 miles?" REPRESENTATIVE MENARD said, "We were trying not to be too restrictive, and in that area, the possibility of a commercial area that would be in the (25 mile) area." Number 445 JEFF OTTESEN, CHIEF OF RIGHT-OF-WAY AND ENVIRONMENT, DIVISION OF ENGINEERING AND OPERATING STANDARDS, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION AND PUBLIC FACILITIES, testified, "25 miles is my recommendation and I understand your concern. The issue here is that the entire highway is not eligible for signing. Only areas that are either zoned commercial industrial or are a commercial industrial land use. So if you are a gas station and a half mile down the road there is another gas station, where you might put advertising, is he going to allow you to put up a sign advertising your gas station? Probably not. Those kinds of concerns and the preponderance of public ownership made me suggest a larger range." REPRESENTATIVE TOOHEY asked, "Are you saying 25 miles from the gas station we are hoping that there is a commercial?" MR. OTTESEN replied, "That was the intent, that if you had 24 miles of public ownership in front of your business, then there really is no opportunity to place the sign. Hopefully, somewhere in the 25 miles there is: A) private ownership; B) commercial industrial use; and, C) willing to let you put a sign up." CHAIRMAN OLBERG pointed out, "This is mandated by the federal government." MR. OTTESEN concurred, "Commercial industrial is an underlying requirement we just have to live with." Number 472 REPRESENTATIVE TOOHEY asked, "Where does this leave TODS (Tourist Oriented Directional Signing)?" MR. OTTESEN said, "TODS is primarily geared to businesses not on the main highway. This would make some of the TODS requirements less necessary." CHAIRMAN OLBERG speculated, "This does not impact TODS." MR. OTTESEN concurred, "It (TODS) would be allowed on top of anything we would do here." Number 486 REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES asked, "Why five? Why couldn't we have reduced this to three...?" CHAIRMAN OLBERG gave examples in Tok and Dot Lake and said, "Some people are going to have to use TODS to have signs, but I don't find five excessive..." REPRESENTATIVE MENARD pointed out TODS cost around $1,500 each. Number 520 MR. OTTESEN said, "The five was actually a worst case scenario. I think the one sign on the business (premises) you should not count in your formula. That sign is already allowed by both federal and state law. Whatever number you set, it should only be those signs that are not on the premises. You might want to pick four. We were thinking about situations where you are near an intersection so you might have three or four roads that ultimately lead to your location in the immediate proximity. And the idea was to have one sign per route of travel or approach. Not to have two or three signs on a given approach." REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES said, "That got to one of my concerns...to just specify five is a little bit too simple. If we could get at the idea that was just expressed, that we had one sign per direction of approach per road, that notion. I would be a lot more comfortable with it." He added, "There are places like Dot Lake as you point out, where even with this you probably will not even be able to put up one sign. The logo approach, it seems to me, might actually do the businesses a better job in a lot of instances than what we are doing here..." MR. OTTESEN said, "When we first looked at the logo program, another one of these programs allowed by federal law, it did not make sense for Alaska. It was geared to interstate situations that had four categories: Food, gas, lodging, and campgrounds. No other activities could be signed. It was intended to be big, expensive signs: $5,000 to $10,000 per business. I understand now...other states have come up with what I call the mini logo sign, a little bit bigger than TODS, but a lot smaller than those monsters you see on the interstate...would fit our circumstances pretty well. It gives you the benefit of being able to put up a colorful logo that describes your business, particularly if your business has a recognizable logo. It would fill a gap that TODS does not always fill and it would certainly fill the gap in areas of almost all public ownership." Number 559 REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES asked, "Is there enough flexibility that we could make that kind of thing work for Alaska?" MR. OTTESEN said, "I don't know if the Oregon approach (mini logo signs) is able to get beyond the limitation of four types of businesses. Right now our TODS program is geared towards anything that a traveler might use. I have to do some investigation to find out if they were able to spread that beyond the food, gas, lodging, and camping. But definitely in terms of it being small enough to be affordable, but large enough to be read, it was working and people seemed to use it. And it was being used on two-lane highways in a rural setting." Number 590 REPRESENTATIVE TOOHEY proposed community services also be viewed on the mini logo signs. MR. OTTESEN said, "The time that we did the first TODS study we came up with a concept called the Community Service Sign...it was intended to say, 'There's a community off the highway here and they have a whole variety of services'." He added these were currently used in the Yukon Territory. Number 603 CHAIRMAN OLBERG suggested Representative Toohey serve on a subcommittee to work on HB 26. REPRESENTATIVE TOOHEY consented. Number 610 REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES suggested, "Would it work to say, 'no more than two signs per business location per route'?" MR. OTTESEN said, "I've been thinking about the language... One sign per direction or approach." Number 620 REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES said further, "There ought to be a disclaimer in here that says this does not limit in any sense the use of TODS." CHAIRMAN OLBERG suggested, "Back to the drawing board, Representative Menard?" REPRESENTATIVE MENARD concurred. ADJOURNMENT CHAIRMAN OLBERG adjourned the meeting at 1:48.
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