December 9, 2016…

December 9, 2016

Highway Corridor Management and Property Office
Highway Standards Branch
Ministry of Transportation
301 St. Paul Street
St. Catharines, ON L2R 7R4
E-mail: kris.kernaghan@ontario.ca

EBR Registry Number: 012-8680

Third Party Advertising Along Provincial Highways
Comments submitted by RCC Media

To Whom it May Concern,

Thank you for allowing comments to your existing Corridor Signing Policy. As a medium sized outdoor advertising company, we strongly support modernizing the existing policy. Our primary concern is the prohibition of third party signs within the 400m limit of 400-series highways. We believe this regulation creates confusion and has unnecessarily lead to many illegal signs. We believe this restriction should be removed. We appreciate that the Province might be concerned about the proliferation of signs, however, with existing municipal regulations and some simple provincial rules, this concern can be mitigated.

Please see our specific suggestions below:

Recommendations

1.Permit third party static and digital advertising signs along 400-series highways only in built up urban areas. These areas are already highly commercialized and regulated closely by municipal sign bylaws. We are comfortable in supporting the continued use of the 400m restriction in non-urban areas to maintain the rural character of much of our Province.

2.Any proposed signs on 400-series highways should first be approved by the respective municipality before being submitted to MTO. MTO should rely on specific municipal regulations such as size, height and setbacks. If MTO wants to have some additional safeguards we could recommend the following:

•Maximum size 65sq’
•Maximum height 20m
•Minimum setback from highway 10m
•Permitted on rail, utility and only in industrial areas

3.Digital billboards along 400-series Highways within CMA’s should be permitted. Safety studies across North America have concluded that these types of signs are safety neutral. In fact many government agencies have benefited from the use of digital signs for community initiatives and safety messages. Most major government jurisdictions in North America allow digital signs and impose the following type of restrictions:

-Static images only
-Minimum 10 second Dwell times
-Maximum 1 second Transition time
-5000 nits maximum Daytime illumination
-300 nits maximum Nighttime illumination

4.We would also support providing time on digitals signs approved on series-400 Highways for the MTO Compass Program.

Once again we thank you for your consideration and look forward to seeing positive changes to the Corridor Signing Policy in 2017.

[Original Comment ID: 205421]