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- [Narrator] In Texas, the complicated task of regulating
offsite billboards on commercially zoned property
along our highways originates
from the Lady Bird Johnson 1965 Highway Beautification Act.
Because of a Supreme Court ruling
in 2015 regarding billboards,
TxDOT wanted to have a better understanding
of billboard regulation practices.
This broad-ranging project,
conducted by the Center for Transportation Research
at the University of Texas,
will have states from across the country
interested in the findings.
- So when we worked with CTR,
the direction for them was to research
what other state laws and rules are
but also do case studies
to find out what litigation's been successful
on specific topics that are a problem for the state.
There's certain areas in our regulations
that are probably weak,
and we needed to have better language to do our job.
And so their task was to go find out
what language in other states has been successful
when they're litigating for enforcement.
- Regulating billboards is very complicated.
The laws are complicated.
And Wendy, who has built this program,
wants to have the best program in the country.
She in fact has a national reputation.
She won't tell you that, but she does.
And part of this is to generate best practices for Texas.
- Given the scarcity of resources
and the scarcity of funding and the enormity of the job
and the penalty of losing 10%
of your federal highway funding,
which is about $361 million for Texas,
the stakes are huge.
And you need to know if you're violating the federal law
and if your state law is valid under the US Constitution.
- The goal was to see really,
had the changes that occurred in Texas in their statutes,
were they still fulfilling
the spirit in the letter of the federal law?
Was that gonna pass constitutional muster
on a whole range of areas?
- Because we have a new way
of thinking about and regulating signs,
we had to both implement the new way
and do it in a way that was consistent
with the old way we did it
so that we weren't changing everything.
And that then put every turn we'd used in a new light
because we had a new system undergirding it.
And so we needed to know different ways of doing it
because we were redefining things as we went along.
- There is probably some work that needs to be done
at the federal level,
and then there is still work to be done
in the different states.
And if we can learn from one another,
we can maybe make things better
and also put certainty into the system.
- I think other states are going to look at our work
and see the magnitude of some of the issues
that they're dealing with.
And also, we try to look at best practices.
So we found some creative problem-solving in other states
for how to reduce the proliferation of billboards
and how to regulate them.
- This is the first time a project like this
has ever been done in the US in this program since 1965.
So the information they provided us is very valuable
to our state and, I imagine, to other states as well.
Texas, I guess because we're so large,
has a tendency to run into problems with the billboards
before other states do.
So when we find a solution that works,
other states will end up copying what we do.
So this has moved our program, probably,
and our other programs nationally
to the best position they could ever be in
in 40-plus years.
- [Narrator] For more information
and to find the publications for this project,
please visit the TxDOT Research Library
at the link shown below.