It’s a Billboard Jungle Along L.A. Freeways

It has been 30 years since Lady Bird Johnson declared war on highway ugliness.

We lost. At least it seems that way in much of Southern California.

An island of litter and weeds greets motorists arriving in Downtown Los Angeles on the Hollywood Freeway.

One giant billboard after another--bigger than anything that existed three decades ago--clutter other freeways all over Southern California.

Hot-air balloons, high-flying whales and inflatable Godzillas rise above the landscape on buildings near freeways. A monstrous sign advertising Coliseum events hovers over the Harbor Freeway.

And the California Department of Transportation is inviting businesses to display their logos along freeways in return for maintaining the landscaping, so long as the images appear in the form of pruned shrubbery.

The Highway Beautification Act of 1965 was supposed to end the proliferation of billboards along many highways and put trees in their place. Today, environmentalists say the law has fallen short of their expectations, and even allows billboard companies to trim trees that block their signs.

Nonetheless, the 82-year-old former First Lady, who crusaded hard for what became known as “Lady Bird’s bill,” said in a statement issued Friday from her Texas home that the purpose of the legislation remains noble.

“Highway beautification has come a long way in raising the consciousness of the country to the awareness that our highways can not only be functional in space but also can incorporate an aesthetic element and add pleasure to our lives,” she said. “I’m glad so much has been done and am very hopeful for the future.”

In signing the law 30 years ago today--Oct. 22, 1965--President Lyndon Johnson pledged: “This bill will bring the wonders of nature back into our daily lives.”

Today, it’s hard to see the wonders of nature through the forest of billboards in some places in Southern California.

But it’s not just billboards that detract from the views. Budget cuts, wider roads, a scourge of graffiti and--perhaps most of all --road slobs have taken their toll on Southern California’s once-proud freeways. Each year, Caltrans collects 27,000 truckloads of litter on Los Angeles County freeways.

The problem is not limited to Southern California.

“Unfortunately, we haven’t come as far as we would have hoped” in ridding the roadways of billboards, said Frank Vespe, policy director for the Washington-based conservation group Scenic America. A drive through the city should be more than a “ride through the Yellow Pages,” he added.

Indeed, how the roads appear says a lot about how we feel about ourselves and how others see our city, experts say.

“There’s something very jarring about an ugly environment,” said Robert Kugelmann, chairman of the University of Dallas psychology department. Visual clutter adds to stress and some experts believe it contributes to speeding, on the theory: “This place is so horrible, I want to get out of here as fast as possible,” Kugelmann said.

The beautification act continues to be a subject of controversy, with environmentalists claiming it is weak because it still allows billboards in so many places. The law allows billboards to be placed anywhere in commercial and industrial areas, subject to state and local regulations.

In Southern California, city drivers see many billboards along freeways because that is where the law intended them to be--along commercial strips, industry officials say. And, they maintain, drivers traveling Los Angeles freeways should not expect unobstructed views because there are plenty of pole signs, power lines, decaying buildings--and especially smog--that block vistas.

“It’s done what Lady Bird wanted it to do--that was to keep them out of rural and scenic areas,” said Ed Dato, vice president of public affairs for Eller Media Co., a billboard firm.

Caltrans figures show that the number of billboards and other types of signs along California highways has been cut in half, from about 25,000 in 1965 to about 12,000 today.

But environmentalists say that’s still too many--nearly one sign for every mile of major highway in California. They bitterly complain about a 1978 amendment to the act that required governments to pay billboard companies and the owners of land on which the signs sit for removal of billboards.

Efforts to strengthen controls have been defeated under heavy pressure from the advertising lobby.

During the first two decades after the law was enacted, Congress provided about $250 million nationwide for removal of “nonconforming” signs--those erected legally before the restrictions took effect.

Indeed, thousands of signs have been removed, but in California, 1,900 nonconforming signs remain standing, as do 1,000 that never were legal to put up, according to the Federal Highway Administration.

In recent years, the federal government has left it to states to decide whether they want to use federal transit dollars for billboard removal or other highway projects. Caltrans has not paid for billboard removal for years, choosing instead to spend the funds on such things as safety and road maintenance, said spokesman Jim Drago.

But federal officials say the law has prevented many billboards from going up, especially in the scenic countryside.

Vespe, however, estimates that there are 77,000 nonconforming billboards still standing nationwide and that only about 400 are being removed each year.

“So in another couple of hundred years, we might get them all down,” he said.

Environmentalists praise the act for prohibiting new billboards on designated scenic highways--Angeles Crest Highway is the only one in Los Angles County--and allowing state and local governments to enact tougher controls. Billboards have been banned from highways in Hawaii, Alaska, Maine and Vermont.

Years ago, Los Angeles prohibited new billboards “viewed primarily” from a freeway, and officials say that as a result the view from freeways has improved.

But others maintain that billboards are inevitable.

“If the car is indeed a structural bastion of our current society, we would do well to try and come to terms with it in the landscape,” said Rob Thayer, professor of landscape architecture at UC Davis. “We should expect to see billboards.”

Some people even like billboards.

They say the signs break up the monotony of traffic, can be entertaining and even constitute a form of pop art.

One current billboard includes a real pair of pants (one pair was even swiped). Another features a real truck. Yet another includes a steaming 3-D hamburger.

Los Angeles has one of the most famous stretches of billboards in the world--Sunset Strip.

“I think they fit into an urban scene,” said Bonnie Kingry, public affairs representative for Gannett Outdoor. “I don’t want to see them out in Yosemite either. But in a commercial and industrial area, I think they have their purpose.”

But Vespe regards billboards as “nothing more than litter on a stick,” and subscribes to the words of Ogden Nash: “I think that I shall never see/A billboard lovely as a tree;/In fact, unless the billboards fall,/I’ll never see a tree at all.”

“What makes Los Angeles special is what makes Los Angeles unique,” Vespe said. “The more billboards you see in a place, the more that place could be anyplace.”

Nancy Fletcher, president and chief executive officer of the Outdoor Advertising Assn. of America, responded: “Billboards are a magnet for small businesses to pull travelers off the roads, and they set in motion a cycle of spending that ends with increased jobs and revenues for local economies.”

While environmentalists have continued to fight to further restrict billboards, Caltrans has been spending less to landscape the freeways--another goal of the beautification act.

Only about $2 million is being spent statewide this year on planting bushes and trees--down from double-digit numbers a few years ago. That’s considerably less than the $3 million Caltrans spends to remove graffiti from Los Angeles County freeways.

Increased traffic and longer periods of congestion over the years also have left “smaller windows of opportunity for maintenance,” said Bill Koval, Caltrans landscape architect in Los Angeles. Freeway widenings have done away with a lot of the greenery.

And much of the landscaping on L.A.’s freeways is simply old. “It’s showing its age,” Koval said.

“I’m very disappointed with the way a lot of areas look,” he said, adding that maintenance crews are doing “an outstanding job with what they have.”

To offset budget cuts, Caltrans’ “Adopt a Highway” program has gotten businesses and individuals (from Bette Midler to a nudist colony to the John Birch Society) to pick up litter on freeways or pay someone to do it.

(Ohio refused to allow the Ku Klux Klan to join its Adopt a Highway program because the state feared that it would lead people to dump trash to make the klan pick it up.)

Nonetheless, Southern California still has bright spots that speak to Lady Bird’s vision.

In northern San Diego County, colorful oleander--which requires virtually no water and which flowers throughout the year--is a prominent plant along Interstate 5.

In Westlake Village, local officials dug into city coffers to landscape the entrance to the city along the Ventura Freeway. Cerritos also helped to pay for increased landscaping along the Artesia Freeway.

But in Agoura Hills, residents have fought for more than a decade to rid the city of “billboard alley,” where about a dozen billboards disrupt spectacular mountain views along a three-mile stretch of the Ventura Freeway.

Although the town has banned new billboards, City Councilwoman Fran Pavley said Agoura Hills does not have the several hundred thousand dollars it would take to pay to remove each billboard. City leaders tried to have the Ventura Freeway declared a scenic highway, seeing it as a way to secure funds for billboard removal. But the designation was rejected in part because state officials believed that Agoura Hills had too many billboards.

“It’s all a matter of priorities,” Koval said. “The cities feel the roadsides are very important--in effect, the front door for people coming into their communities. People get a perception of the quality of life in that community based on that front-door appearance.”

Robert Diplock, planning manager for Lynwood, said: “I remember years ago traveling through Europe and thinking, ‘Why does this look so different?’ I finally realized there weren’t any billboards. You could actually see the scenery.”