Rates To Skyrocket For Highway Advertising Low Price Ending For Businesses Advertising On State Road Signs

It has been a sweet deal: $10 a year to get invaluable advertising space on roadside signs trumpeting cafes, motels and gas stations at the next exit or intersection.

That’s about to change.

Transportation budget negotiators on Thursday struck a compromise that will boost the display fee to about $150 a year over the course of three years.

That still won’t cover the full cost because the state will bear the expense of erecting the large wooden backboards on which the logo signs are festooned.

Since highway billboards were banned under Lady Bird Johnson’s highway beautification efforts, many highway-related businesses have come to rely on placing their logos on state-owned backboards along freeways and state highways.

According to the Legislative Transportation Committee, 1,716 businesses have snapped up the opportunity for the low-cost advertising. These include restaurants, fast-food joints, gas stations and motels.

When businesses provide their own small sign or logo, they pay $75 for the initial application fee and $80 to have the logo added to the state’s roadside backboard. The annual display fee is $10. If the state makes the sign, the initial cost jumps by anywhere from $145 to $320.

But the sticking point with many legislators has been the $10 annual fee.

“We aren’t looking for a cash cow, but we don’t have a lot of money (for transportation purposes), and should we be subsidizing private business advertising?” asks House Transportation Chairwoman Karen Schmidt, R-Bainbridge Island.

The new plan will boost the $10 fee by about 15-fold over the next three years. Actual levels will be up to the Department of Transportation, but lawmakers figure the first increase, affecting all new businesses and those who renew, will be $50. That probably will rise to $100 a year later and to $150 or so in the third year, said Senate Transportation Chairman Brad Owen, D-Shelton.

The fees will recover most of the state’s costs, including cleaning and maintenance, Owen and Schmidt said.

The phase-in is a compromise between Schmidt, who wanted to make the program self-supporting immediately, and Owen, who wanted to phase it in over five years.