Should billboards stand in the way of progress? The question faces the frustrated citizens of traffic-choked Houston, where much needed $800 million highway improvement projects planned for the next five years have been indefinitely delayed because of a bizarre dispute among the city, the state of Texas and the local billboard industry. The state’s highway commission, which had planned the construction, needs to move 123 billboards along various routes to new locations. But that would violate a tough antibillboard law enacted by the city council in 1980. The ordinance prohibits the erection of any new billboards in Houston, which already has a staggering 7,331 of the signs, or approximately four times as many as Atlanta or New Orleans.
If the highway commission decides to dismantle the billboards, the owners would then have to be compensated under state and federal law for the full value of the signs. The problem is that in the eight years since the ban on new signs was passed, the value of the existing billboards has skyrocketed. The highway commission estimates that it would cost the prohibitive total of some $12.3 million to buy all the signs that are blocking construction. One billboard, which carries a Dewar’s Scotch whisky ad and a promotion for Hilton hotels, is said to be worth $400,000.
As things stand, either the city will have to make some exceptions to its antibillboard law or the state will have to pay millions to the sign owners. So far, neither side has budged, and the traffic jams in Houston just keep getting worse.
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