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The American state of Vermont has banned billboards since 1968. It makes spending time in the state extraordinarily pleasant.

cchi_co 2y ago
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tdb7893 2y ago
Hawaii also has a billboard ban. It was really jarring moving back to Illinois after getting used to not having them. It seems pretty clear that the negative impact of billboards far outweigh the benefits so I'm always hoping more places outlaw them.
- bruce511 2y ago
  Yes travelling can really create a sense of what you have, or lack. Where I live there are very few billboards. I rarely see them. When I travel (especially to the US) it's very jarring. They are very visually polluting.
- hollerith 2y ago
  There is a ban on billboards in Marin County (on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco). Legally speaking, billboards are only banned within 500 yards or some other distance from the highway with the most traffic (where billboards would be most valuable, namely, US 101) but actually there are no billboards anywhere in the county and this has been the case since the 1960s (according to an old newspaper article). My guess is that the community has some way to exert "informal" (not based on formal governmental processes) pressure on landlords. Real estate prices are very high here in part because it is a very attractive landscape with plenty of hills and greenery and bodies of water, so maybe most landlords perceive that billboards have the potential to depress prices and keep the occasional landlord who contemplates erecting billboards in line somehow. Also as an exception to the general rule, bus shelters (structures owned and maintained by the city or the county to keep the rain and the sun off people waiting for a bus) near US 101 have ads on them (4' by 6' or so) and the buses themselves do, too, or at least they used to--it's been a few years since I noticed.
  - b112 2y ago
    Real estate prices are very high here in part because it is a very scenic place with a lot of hills and trees and such I have a hard time accepting the "in part" even, and sort of align with "the only reason it's expensive is because of the closeness to SV". But yes it is very nice. And yes billboards would make it less nice.
    - hollerith 2y ago
      Marin County to SV is a really nasty commute, but I concede if it weren't close to downtown SF it would cost a lot less to live in Marin County. Large numbers of high paying jobs are necessary for high housing prices except in tax havens like Monaco.
      - b112 2y ago
        When I was a kid, I lived on lake which was connected to Lake Ontario. One summer a job was across the our small lake, a 40 minute drive by car, but maybe 10 minutes by boat as the crow flies. Sure, I got wet during rain and wavy days, but clothes get dry, and it sure was convenient. I often wondered, if the job was in SF itself, do people take boats to get to work? If so, why not? I presume docking costs? The place I worked had their own dock, so ... "sure, just tie up over there every day".
        hollerith 2y ago
        Ferries are a popular way to commute from Marin Country to SF: https://www.goldengate.org/ferry/schedules-maps/ https://www.goldengate.org/ferry/schedules-maps/ https://www.blueandgoldfleet.com/sausalito/ https://www.blueandgoldfleet.com/sausalito/ I don't know of anyone using or having used a private boat to make the commute.
        dalke 2y ago
        When I was a kid in Miami, I read about people commuting to work by jet ski. This was before they replaced the Rickenbacker Causeway drawbridge with the William Powell Bridge, and the commute from Key Biscayne into Miami could be delayed and backed up, as boats had the right-of-way.
- lostlogin 2y ago
  The worst are the super bright lcd/led screen billboards. They are incredibly obnoxious. I’m surprised if they don’t case car crashes.
  - Mo3 2y ago
    I'm sure they do
  - cchi_co 2y ago
    [dead]
  - devilbunny 2y ago
    Right up there with LED cop lights. Fucking blinding. I got stopped at a roadblock even before LED's, the highway patrol officer said "I wasn't sure you were going to stop, you nearly ran over [X] over there" and my reply was, "Your lights are so bright, and blue, and right here on the road, that I can't see a thing. I'm glad I didn't."
- usrusr 2y ago
  The benefits of billboards are a zero sum game, it's absurdly easy for the benefits of a ban to outweigh them. Here in Germany regulation of outside ads has zero novelty value, it's so much a given that I don't know anything about the history of it. And it turns out the benefits of a ban are much bigger than just more pleasant views, because the ad spend does not simply disappear. Much of it gets channeled into event sponsoring, sports clubs and the like, in short things that actually improve life for all instead of just providing some more passive income for property owners. It's a total no-brainer if there ever was one.
  - account42 2y ago
    Still plenty of outside ads in Germany. The regulation needs to be stronger.
- mynameisash 2y ago
  This pretty much mirrors my experience: I live in Washington, and when I drive down the freeway, I see nothing but trees and mountains. When I go back to Minnesota to visit family, I'm bombarded with billboards -- often political or religious content. I don't miss that at all.
knowaveragejoe 2y ago
Various localities have similar bans. I'm aware of at least one with strict signage controls, shopping centers generally have an directory near the entrance(s) and that's about it other than the signage on the stores themselves.
- MH15 2y ago
  Irvine, CA has an outdoor advertising ban. Driving the 405 through OC you quickly see the difference.
storyinmemo 2y ago
Maine followed in 1978. The way life should be.
- JKCalhoun 2y ago
  Should be a no-brainer in any U.S. state with ballot measures.
cyberax 2y ago
Hah. Washington doesn't ban billboards, but we don't have that many of them. They are also usually not too garish. I was shocked by the number of "One call, that's all" accident attorney billboards in LA and FL when I drove through them several years ago.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  > Washington doesn't ban billboards Not entirely, but it impose some very important limits on any signs near highways, such as requiring them to be advertising something that's available from the same property under them. That effectively blocks the most spammy and egregious forests of signs, because one can't just purchase a small rectangle of near-highway grass and start auctioning space above it to a large shifting pool of national bidders. https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=47.42.040 https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=47.42.040
- mikestew 2y ago
  They are also usually not too garish. Don’t drive I-5 by Fife much, eh? Okay, you did say “usually”. Redmond has an outright ban on billboards. That’s how I know where the Redmond/Kirkland border is (there’s a billboard on 124th St.) Now if they if they’d just follow King County on those fucking political signs. (King County says “not on public right-of-ways”, Redmond says “where ever you see a patch of grass”.)
  - tmathmeyer 2y ago
    Wow. I drive up 124th all the time, and never noticed. checking now on street view does prove you right though, there are three just west of willows.
- PessimalDecimal 2y ago
  It used to be true that near the FL/GA border you'd see billboards advertising "TOPLESS DANCERS" for 50 miles on either side of the fine establishment buying these billboards. The sheer number of them was almost a parody of billboards in a way.
vertnerd 2y ago
It makes living in the state extraordinarily pleasant, too!
Mountain_Skies 2y ago
One of the nice side effects of hosting the Olympics was the ban on new advertising billboards in the downtown core of Atlanta. There are a few old signs that were grandfathered in but it's close to impossible to get new billboards added. One of the nice side effects of having a tornado rip through downtown a decade later was that it destroyed some of the grandfathered in billboards which the city did not allow to be replaced despite crying from the billboard companies. To prevent "ambush marketing", the IOC demands control over advertising in the area around the games. Given what a big deal it was for a city like Atlanta to get to host the games, this was one of the few times when the public was going to win despite the money and influence of the advertising industry. To its credit, Atlanta has mostly stuck by those Olympic era billboard laws. The biggest exception probably is the huge video board next to the Ernst & Young building but it replaced a much more modest video sign that had already been there. Being a large city, Atlanta has the resources to fight court challenges against the well funded advertising industry. Several of the suburban and exurban communities I lived in had citizens and governments united in their hatred of billboards but they lacked the resources to prevent them as the billboard companies have lots of experience with bleeding local governments dry in court, sending a message to other local governments to not even bother trying to oppose them. Big cities however can do better... if they wish to. Los Angeles, you have an opportunity in 2028. Will you take advantage of it like Atlanta did?
greenie_beans 2y ago
one of the few NIMBY regulations i'll get behind
xenospn 2y ago
Meanwhile in LA, I see 305 billboards on my morning walk through sunset blvd.
- 1oooqooq 2y ago
  My old office was decorated with a picture of an art installation which was a house painted entirely white, even the palm trees. Someplace east LA. But in front there was a bus with a huge Marvel whatever advert pasted on the side passing by.
jombib 2y ago
In 77 (way before me) Maine also did this and yes it really makes the state much more beautiful especially in the fall.

cchi_co 2y ago

[dead]

tdb7893 2y ago

Hawaii also has a billboard ban. It was really jarring moving back to Illinois after getting used to not having them. It seems pretty clear that the negative impact of billboards far outweigh the benefits so I'm always hoping more places outlaw them.

bruce511 2y ago
Yes travelling can really create a sense of what you have, or lack. Where I live there are very few billboards. I rarely see them. When I travel (especially to the US) it's very jarring. They are very visually polluting.
hollerith 2y ago
There is a ban on billboards in Marin County (on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco). Legally speaking, billboards are only banned within 500 yards or some other distance from the highway with the most traffic (where billboards would be most valuable, namely, US 101) but actually there are no billboards anywhere in the county and this has been the case since the 1960s (according to an old newspaper article). My guess is that the community has some way to exert "informal" (not based on formal governmental processes) pressure on landlords. Real estate prices are very high here in part because it is a very attractive landscape with plenty of hills and greenery and bodies of water, so maybe most landlords perceive that billboards have the potential to depress prices and keep the occasional landlord who contemplates erecting billboards in line somehow. Also as an exception to the general rule, bus shelters (structures owned and maintained by the city or the county to keep the rain and the sun off people waiting for a bus) near US 101 have ads on them (4' by 6' or so) and the buses themselves do, too, or at least they used to--it's been a few years since I noticed.
- b112 2y ago
  Real estate prices are very high here in part because it is a very scenic place with a lot of hills and trees and such I have a hard time accepting the "in part" even, and sort of align with "the only reason it's expensive is because of the closeness to SV". But yes it is very nice. And yes billboards would make it less nice.
  - hollerith 2y ago
    Marin County to SV is a really nasty commute, but I concede if it weren't close to downtown SF it would cost a lot less to live in Marin County. Large numbers of high paying jobs are necessary for high housing prices except in tax havens like Monaco.
    - b112 2y ago
      When I was a kid, I lived on lake which was connected to Lake Ontario. One summer a job was across the our small lake, a 40 minute drive by car, but maybe 10 minutes by boat as the crow flies. Sure, I got wet during rain and wavy days, but clothes get dry, and it sure was convenient. I often wondered, if the job was in SF itself, do people take boats to get to work? If so, why not? I presume docking costs? The place I worked had their own dock, so ... "sure, just tie up over there every day".
      - hollerith 2y ago
        Ferries are a popular way to commute from Marin Country to SF: https://www.goldengate.org/ferry/schedules-maps/ https://www.goldengate.org/ferry/schedules-maps/ https://www.blueandgoldfleet.com/sausalito/ https://www.blueandgoldfleet.com/sausalito/ I don't know of anyone using or having used a private boat to make the commute.
        dalke 2y ago
        When I was a kid in Miami, I read about people commuting to work by jet ski. This was before they replaced the Rickenbacker Causeway drawbridge with the William Powell Bridge, and the commute from Key Biscayne into Miami could be delayed and backed up, as boats had the right-of-way.
lostlogin 2y ago
The worst are the super bright lcd/led screen billboards. They are incredibly obnoxious. I’m surprised if they don’t case car crashes.
- Mo3 2y ago
  I'm sure they do
- cchi_co 2y ago
  [dead]
- devilbunny 2y ago
  Right up there with LED cop lights. Fucking blinding. I got stopped at a roadblock even before LED's, the highway patrol officer said "I wasn't sure you were going to stop, you nearly ran over [X] over there" and my reply was, "Your lights are so bright, and blue, and right here on the road, that I can't see a thing. I'm glad I didn't."
usrusr 2y ago
The benefits of billboards are a zero sum game, it's absurdly easy for the benefits of a ban to outweigh them. Here in Germany regulation of outside ads has zero novelty value, it's so much a given that I don't know anything about the history of it. And it turns out the benefits of a ban are much bigger than just more pleasant views, because the ad spend does not simply disappear. Much of it gets channeled into event sponsoring, sports clubs and the like, in short things that actually improve life for all instead of just providing some more passive income for property owners. It's a total no-brainer if there ever was one.
- account42 2y ago
  Still plenty of outside ads in Germany. The regulation needs to be stronger.
mynameisash 2y ago
This pretty much mirrors my experience: I live in Washington, and when I drive down the freeway, I see nothing but trees and mountains. When I go back to Minnesota to visit family, I'm bombarded with billboards -- often political or religious content. I don't miss that at all.

knowaveragejoe 2y ago

Various localities have similar bans. I'm aware of at least one with strict signage controls, shopping centers generally have an directory near the entrance(s) and that's about it other than the signage on the stores themselves.

MH15 2y ago
Irvine, CA has an outdoor advertising ban. Driving the 405 through OC you quickly see the difference.

storyinmemo 2y ago

Maine followed in 1978. The way life should be.

JKCalhoun 2y ago
Should be a no-brainer in any U.S. state with ballot measures.

cyberax 2y ago

Hah. Washington doesn't ban billboards, but we don't have that many of them. They are also usually not too garish. I was shocked by the number of "One call, that's all" accident attorney billboards in LA and FL when I drove through them several years ago.

Terr_ 2y ago
> Washington doesn't ban billboards Not entirely, but it impose some very important limits on any signs near highways, such as requiring them to be advertising something that's available from the same property under them. That effectively blocks the most spammy and egregious forests of signs, because one can't just purchase a small rectangle of near-highway grass and start auctioning space above it to a large shifting pool of national bidders. https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=47.42.040 https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=47.42.040
mikestew 2y ago
They are also usually not too garish. Don’t drive I-5 by Fife much, eh? Okay, you did say “usually”. Redmond has an outright ban on billboards. That’s how I know where the Redmond/Kirkland border is (there’s a billboard on 124th St.) Now if they if they’d just follow King County on those fucking political signs. (King County says “not on public right-of-ways”, Redmond says “where ever you see a patch of grass”.)
- tmathmeyer 2y ago
  Wow. I drive up 124th all the time, and never noticed. checking now on street view does prove you right though, there are three just west of willows.
PessimalDecimal 2y ago
It used to be true that near the FL/GA border you'd see billboards advertising "TOPLESS DANCERS" for 50 miles on either side of the fine establishment buying these billboards. The sheer number of them was almost a parody of billboards in a way.

vertnerd 2y ago

It makes living in the state extraordinarily pleasant, too!

Mountain_Skies 2y ago

One of the nice side effects of hosting the Olympics was the ban on new advertising billboards in the downtown core of Atlanta. There are a few old signs that were grandfathered in but it's close to impossible to get new billboards added. One of the nice side effects of having a tornado rip through downtown a decade later was that it destroyed some of the grandfathered in billboards which the city did not allow to be replaced despite crying from the billboard companies. To prevent "ambush marketing", the IOC demands control over advertising in the area around the games. Given what a big deal it was for a city like Atlanta to get to host the games, this was one of the few times when the public was going to win despite the money and influence of the advertising industry. To its credit, Atlanta has mostly stuck by those Olympic era billboard laws. The biggest exception probably is the huge video board next to the Ernst & Young building but it replaced a much more modest video sign that had already been there. Being a large city, Atlanta has the resources to fight court challenges against the well funded advertising industry. Several of the suburban and exurban communities I lived in had citizens and governments united in their hatred of billboards but they lacked the resources to prevent them as the billboard companies have lots of experience with bleeding local governments dry in court, sending a message to other local governments to not even bother trying to oppose them. Big cities however can do better... if they wish to. Los Angeles, you have an opportunity in 2028. Will you take advantage of it like Atlanta did?

greenie_beans 2y ago

one of the few NIMBY regulations i'll get behind

xenospn 2y ago

Meanwhile in LA, I see 305 billboards on my morning walk through sunset blvd.

1oooqooq 2y ago
My old office was decorated with a picture of an art installation which was a house painted entirely white, even the palm trees. Someplace east LA. But in front there was a bus with a huge Marvel whatever advert pasted on the side passing by.

jombib 2y ago

In 77 (way before me) Maine also did this and yes it really makes the state much more beautiful especially in the fall.