THE SIGNAGE FOUNDATION FOR COMMUNICATION EXCELLENCE, INC.

Efficiency

In North America, commercial districts (zones) locate at travel points of confluence. Traditionally these points were located at rail heads/junctions or river/sea ports. Small town America had its main street; large cities had their "districts", e.g., financial, retail, entertainment. With the construction of the interstate highway system, the shift in residential housing from urban to suburban, the increased use of the automobile, and the expansion of freight delivery by truck, commercial centers have spread throughout the urban, suburban and even rural setting. Because of this diffusion, efficient land use has become a primary planning goal. A significant part of this goal is to promote fiscal health through policies that assist continued commercial contact with the motoring public.

If a business is to successfully attract the motoring public, it most effectively and affordably does so through signage. Businesses incur substantial tax liability for doing business, and much of these tax dollars are paid to the municipality. Property taxes are the most universal, but many municipalities also receive a percentage of all sales taxes collected.^[53] In some metropolitan areas, such as Portland, Oregon, businesses are required to assist in funding the mass transit system through payroll taxes. Additionally, businesses routinely pay license, inventory and other taxes or fees to the community.

The visibility component of a retail site plays a significant role in every tax assessor's determination of value for property tax purposes. In most instances, retail rents (and commercial real property sales) are higher for sites with street visibility; sales are also generally higher.^[54] The greater a site's income in relation to other commercial properties, the higher the property tax assessment. In all state and local governments, the principal is the same:the higher the net income a property generates, the higher its assessed real estate value.^[55]

A community responsive to consumer mobility and consumption patterns will capture at least 25 percent, and possibly up to 50 percent, of its business income from people who live or work out of the definable trade area. Because such consumers spend and then move on, they do not burden public services, such as police and fire protection or school districts -- the largest consumer of municipal tax dollars. Revenue provided by the non-local transient consumer population is the least expensive (most cost-effective) revenue to generate...and provides significant funding for community infrastructure and services.

In addition to generating beneficent revenues, creative on-premise signage often keeps local income in town, by informing and attracting consumers who live and work there. In the modern marketplace, the right place-based advertising will effectively and economically permit the local shopkeeper to successfully compete, even with the mass merchandiser or big box retailer.^[56]

All community stakeholders should strive to recognize and understand the contributory value of signage to the business community, to the public it is intended to serve, to the community's tax base, and to the revenue sharing of local governments. The issue is never just one of bringing more business to an individual sign user.

Public Welfare and Safe Passage (or Wayfinding)

Signs are critical to safe movement by the traveling public and are the primary wayfinding device employed in today's North American mobile consumer society. Traffic risks and accidents occur in part because people are not provided easy access to information necessary to their purpose. Drivers look for...and expect to find...signs telling them where to go and what is available once they get there as well as how to avoid potential risk. An informational or directional sign that is too small, badly placed, poorly illuminated, or lacking conspicuity in that it cannot be discerned from its background is frustrating to the mobile consumer and may cause the consumer to make unsafe traffic maneuvers.

Safe wayfinding is not only important on major highways, but also within the municipality itself.A jurisdiction which relegates certain activities to certain areas, and then won't permit adequate informational and directional signage, is creating a hazard for the public. Frustrated consumers will make unsafe traffic maneuvers to get where they want to go. Furthermore, as the present motoring population ages, and driver visual acuity concurrently decreases, the need for better signage conspicuity and legibility will correspondingly increase throughout the urban and suburban landscape.