Originally published Aug. 31, 2016, on the Houston Chronicle website at https://tinyurl.com/2eujzn2z.
By Roy Kent
Staff writer
As an Army Brat, we moved around a lot when I was a child. From North Carolina to Texas, there were stops in Michigan and two in Germany.
After the first stop in Germany, we arrived in South Carolina, got off the plane and straight to a bus. At night, the sight of billboards on the side of the road was rather interesting. There were no billboards along highways in Germany.
Lighting up the night sky, the billboards were entertaining to a young kid. As I got older, they became intrusive. They were the pop-up ads in the pre-Internet world.
Around Houston, it is hard to drive anywhere without seeing the sky-high billboards hawking this or selling that. Some are clever while others are just factual. But there they are, dominating the highway skylines.
Scenic Houston, meanwhile, is working diligently to stop any new billboard from going up and bringing those already there down to the ground.
Last week, Scenic Houston applauded the efforts of the city of Houston. According to a news release, the City Council recently passed an ordinance approving a contract agreement with outdoor billboard company JGI to reduce the number of its billboards in Houston. “JGI, a major billboard company with inventory in Houston, has agreed to remove 13 billboards around the city,” according to a news release.
“With the JGI agreement final, the total number of billboards to be removed across the City and its ETJ is now 68, a 4 percent reduction in the city’s total inventory.”
This a good thing and a good start. Anything that can lower the number of billboards on the highways — which also contributes to light pollution, by the way — is a good thing.
It is already against the law to erect new billboards to any that are taken out of circulation will not be replaced.
Anne Culver, president of Scenic Houston, recently spoke a chamber of commerce meeting in northwest Harris County. At that meeting, she said there wasn’t a sign ordinance in the city of Houston until 1980.
“There were about 15,000 billboards in the city of Houston. By 1985 there was a complete prohibition on new billboards,” Culver said. “No business had to shut down. It simply said there were enough billboards. We’re now at about 1,500-1,600 billboards. That is because of community pressure.”
In New Mexico, cities have taken on the battle of light pollution, which billboards is a major contributor. There is a push to bring back the night sky free of light bleeding from billboards, lamp posts and anything else that lets light escape into the sky.
In Houston, it is totally believable that many people may have never seen a constellation. It’s simply too bright out there.
“There will be no new billboards posted in the greater Houston area,” Culver said. “In fact, billboards are being brought down on a near-daily basis. It is illegal to erect new billboards.”
That statement was made before the latest reduction. Let’s bring even more down.
For more information on Scenic Houston, go to www.scenichouston.org.
You didn't know? 
Leave a comment