Six Digital B’boards Coming to Long Beach

Orange, Calif.-based Media Management Services is attempting to place six digital billboards along three major highways in and around San Diego.

Income from the boards, proposed for the Artesia Freeway, the San Diego Freeway and the Long Beach Freeway, would be split between the city of Long Beach and the billboard company, writes the Long Beach Press Telegram.

Across the country, cities have battled against giving permits for digital billboards, but when placed squarely against the economics of the situation - Long Beach stands to bring in an estimated $1.5 million to $2 million per year - objections seem to melt away.

The U.S. Department of Transportation issued a guidance memorandum last September allowing for the construction of thousands of digital billboards along interstate and federal-aid highways.

The policy was issued in advance of the completion of the FHWA’s research into the safety issues associated with the signs, Scenic America points out. That research will not be completed until 2009.

Part of the memo reads that “proposed laws, regulations and procedures that would allow permitting CEVMS (commercial electronic variable message signs) subject to acceptable criteria do not violate a prohibition against ‘intermittent’ or ‘flashing’ or ‘moving’ lights as those terms are used in the various FSAs (federal-state agreements) that have been entered into during the 1960s and 1970s.”