Vegetation Control

The outdoor advertising industry supports responsible state regulations in order to conduct selective pruning and trimming as part of state highway landscaping and maintenance programs. 

Vegetation control is a common, longstanding practice along roadways, for the sake of safety and visibility. Using widely accepted practices, utilities routinely trim vegetation so power lines can be maintained.

• Vegetation control standards are created by experts at a respected not-for-profit organization that administers a wide variety of voluntary consensus standards for U.S. business: the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). OAAA encourages adherence to ANSI standards.
• Selective trimming control is common to good highway landscaping practices. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials’ “Guide for Highway Landscape and Environmental Design” contains guidelines for the selective thinning of trees. AASHTO says, in part, “to create a natural transition between open clearing of the site and the undisturbed woods, to form bays and open areas in woods, to thin heavy stands, to remove undesirable species, and to open views to vistas.”
• Highway safety is not compromised by a vegetation clearance or maintenance policy and, in fact, it may be improved.
• Businesses routinely trim vegetation that obstructs access to their facilities or obscures their visibility from prospective customers.
• Private sector initiated vegetation control saves taxpayers the cost of scarce highway maintenance resources.
• States incur no costs when the private sector shares costs for landscaping, litter pick-up and irrigation under state monitored guidelines.
• The taxpayer is the recipient of reduced costs under private sector cost-sharing programs.
• The OAAA discourages vegetation control that is not in compliance with state and local laws and regulations.

The industry has worked cooperatively with many states to develop guidelines and practices in drafting vegetation control agreements. Twenty-nine states have vegetation control agreements or laws in effect with billboard companies that are reasonable to all parties. The states are:
 

Issue Brief

Vegetation Video