It’s useful to know how the other side thinks even when you don’t agree.  Scenic America posted these comments on its website after losing its challenge to Federal Digital sign guidelines this week:

Fifty years after the passage of President and Lady Bird Johnson’s Highway Beautification Act, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has ruled against highway beauty. Scenic America has lost its challenge to the 2007 Federal Highway Administration memorandum that permitted the $7 billion billboard industry to begin operating their digital billboards in an intermittent manner along our public highway system.

Scenic America is disappointed in the Court’s ruling and believes that billboards that change intermittently violate the critical customary use provisions of Lady Bird’s Highway Beautification Act, and the Scenic America legal team is considering its options.

“Nearly every day we receive calls from citizens being negatively impacted by intermittently changing digital billboards,” said Mary Tracy, president of Scenic America. “We will continue to oppose the proliferation of these bright, blinking billboards which threaten traffic safety, decrease property values and diminish quality of life for those who live, work and travel in their vicinity.”

There are now nearly 7,000 digital billboards across the country, intermittently changing messages every few seconds, and more are going up every day.

Insider’s take: The Scenic America legal team is considering its options.   Not sure why Scenic America would consider appealing the Appeals Court decision given that it was unanimous.

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