JEFFERSON CITY — Missouri’s highways have several thousand fewer billboards than just a few years ago, but those that remain could become flashier under legislation forcing Gov. Jay Nixon to decide whether he views billboards as visual clutter or vital traveler tools.

Legislation pending before Nixon would allow many of Missouri’s current paper-on-board signs to be converted to digital billboards or improved with better lighting and technologies. It also would let those billboards be moved — instead of torn down — during highway construction and bar local governments from prohibiting billboards, though they could still impose more stringent regulations on the size, height, lighting and spacing than set by state law.

The billboard provisions were tucked into a broader transportation bill passed on the final day of the legislative session. But the means of passage is likely less controversial than the basic premise of whether Missouri wants to allow the proliferation of flashy, digital signs or continue on its current course of encouraging billboards to come down.

Nixon hasn’t publicly commented about the legislation, but his staff has had conversations with people urging him both to sign and veto it.

When Missouri enacted its first billboard laws in the mid-1960s, more than 57,000 signs lined state roads. As Missouri continued to toughen its regulations, the number of billboards fell to about 12,000 in 2004 and to 8,952 at the end of last month, according to the Missouri Department of Transportation.

A 1999 law barred new double-decker billboards, reduced the maximum size of billboards and increased the minimum space between new signs. A 2002 law increased the minimum distance between new billboards again, from 500 feet to 1,400 feet. That change means just three billboards can be built along every mile of highway — down significantly from the prior standard of 10 per mile. Old billboards that don’t meet the new requirements can remain, but they cannot be replaced or improved.

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