L.A. Considers New Roadside Billboard Policy

Despite concerns about traffic safety, city officials have proposed to allow up to 70 new billboards to be erected along freeways in Los Angeles in exchange for the removal of thousands of existing signs on city streets.

The proposal would also ban most new billboards, and provide an incentive for owners to remove existing signs, officials said.

“It would be a ban on [most] new billboards, and it could significantly reduce the number of existing billboards,” said Planning Director Con Howe after sending the draft proposal to the City Council.

Billboard companies would be required to take down 10 square feet of existing billboard for every one square foot of new billboard put up along freeways.

“This is an important step in making our communities look more like neighborhoods,” said council member Mark Ridley-Thomas, who first proposed the plan. “Residents throughout the city of Los Angeles have been appalled by the never ceasing increase in the number of billboards placed so close to where they live.”

But the response was lukewarm at best from other politicians and the billboard industry.

Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, who serves on a task force on billboard regulation, said she prefers outlawing all billboards in Los Angeles without concessions.

“I am not satisfied that this makes sense,” she said of the planning proposal. “By allowing billboards along freeways, that is cracking a barrier that has not been cracked before.”

The city Department of Transportation routinely denies permits for any billboard on private property that can be clearly seen from a freeway on grounds it is a potential traffic hazard, according to Jack Reynolds, a principal transportation engineer for the city.

Most billboards now visible along freeways were erected before the ban or are on land owned by other jurisdictions, Reynolds said.

Reynolds wrote planners arguing that city-sanctioned freeway billboards will cause more traffic accidents. “The majority of billboards are not a hazard, but we don’t control the advertising that goes on them and you can put something on a billboard that would distract motorists,” Reynolds said.

Howe said his agency was unable to find a definitive study linking freeway billboards with traffic accidents. Reynolds said an independent study is needed.

Throughout the state, Caltrans approves permits for billboards along freeways in a process that weighs the potential hazard, according to Ivy Estrada, an agency spokeswoman. Under the proposal, Caltrans would also have to approve any freeway billboards.

Some neighborhood activists said they would welcome the chance to reduce visual blight, but expressed concern about the tradeoff: more freeway advertising. “It could be a traffic hazard,” said Helen Norman, president of the Tarzana Property Owners Assn.

Howe’s agency proposed the square footage formula to avoid having just a few small signs taken down in exchange for large billboards. Depending on the mix of small, medium and large signs that might be taken down, the square footage formula could result in 8,690 sign-faces being taken down, the planning report said.

Deputy planning director Franklin Eberhard estimated there are about 10,000 billboards in the city of Los Angeles, so the proposal could result in most being removed if firms apply for freeway signs.

Billboard industry officials who have sought city-sanctioned access to freeways said the formula may make the exchange unattractive.

“It’s pretty extreme,” said Ed Dato, vice president of Eller Media Co. “It’s far too much that we would be trading back.”