Newsroom

New billboards may be barred from Hill Country road

Wednesday, March 14, 2007
by Asher Price
Austin American-Statesman

A rule proposed by Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, would bar new billboards on Texas 71, as it winds through the Hill Country from the west side of Austin up to Llano.At a hearing Wednesday,critics of billboards said they are a visual blight increasingly common in the state's rural areas, breaking up views and throbbing with light pollution.Industry officials said that the signs channel drivers to small businesses and that billboard construction creates jobs and is a private property right."Most folks that find their way to the Hill Country can tell you some story about the trip they took where they fell in love with Hill Country views," Watson said. "It's one of the priceless assets of Central Texas. We need to protect against the degradation that might occur."The road could join parts of nearly two dozen other roads across the state as highways that have been barred from new billboards.Though more than 350 Texas cities have barred new billboard construction, including Austin, counties have little power over the signs. During the past few years, the state has had to step in and bar billboards from some roads. (Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville, and Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas, have filed bills that would give counties power over billboards.)Texas has about 35,000 billboards and 550 new ones permitted each year, according to Margaret Lloyd, policy director of Scenic Texas, a group that lobbies for legislation such as Watson's. She said that about 80 percent of new billboards are built in rural areas."Billboards are like spam or popups on your computer," Maggie Booth, a Llano rancher, told a Senate committee at a hearing Wednesday. "They're like the telephone solicitor who calls you during your dinner. They're ugly; they block the view of the countryside; they pollute the night sky."Current billboards would be "grandfathered" under the law, and businesses could still erect billboards on their own premises. (Rep. Valinda Bolton, D-Austin, has authored a similar rule in the House.)The rule has gotten a mixed reaction from the local billboard industry."The less billboards out in the Hill Country the better," said Archie Johnson, who lives near Cedar Park and who runs Johnson Outdoor Advertising, which operates nearly 200 billboards in Central Texas.But at least two other billboard representatives appeared at Wednesday's hearing to defend them."The industry is not against scenic areas," said Tim Anderson, vice president for governmental affairs at Clear Channel Outdoor, a major billboard company. "This area isgetting urbanized. Billboards follow growth; billboards follow business; not the other way around. We do not look for a nice field of bluebonnets and say, 'That's where we want our sign.' "Anderson said billboards along Texas 71 are crucial to steering drivers to businesses off the beaten path in such communities as Marble Falls and Horseshoe Bay.The Travis County Commissioners Court passed a resolution this year alsoencouraging the barring of new billboards along Texas 71. Much of the road is billboard-free, but residents say they have begun to crop up over the past few years.Texas is not Vermont. The Green Mountain State, along with Alaska, Hawaii, Maine and Rhode Island, prohibits new billboard construction, according to Scenic America, a Washington advocacy group. (In addition, Oregon has adopted a "cap and replace" law; no one may erect a new billboard until they remove an existing one.)And as proud as Texas is of its roads, it is also one of the few states that lacks a scenic byway program, which would allow it to qualify for federal money.Instead, nearly two dozen roads (including U.S. 290 between Austin and Fredericksburg) are insulated from new billboard construction in a part of the Texas Transportation Code that might as well be known as the Ogden Nash Billboard section.The poet once wrote, "I think that I shall never see/A billboard lovely as a tree./ Perhaps, unless the billboards fall,/ I'll never see a tree at all."