Google Street View image.

The California Department of Transportation (or Caltrans) recently completed a survey of property lines along Hwy. 101 between Arcata and Eureka with the goal of finding out, at long last, who owns the property underneath each of the billboards dotting that stretch of road. Turns out most of them sit on private property, a fact which could prove problematic for Caltrans down the line. (We’ll explore why below.)

But five of the billboards, according to Caltrans’ research, sit on land owned by public agencies, and those agencies want the signs removed, like, yesterday. The five billboards in question are all located west of the freeway between Arcata’s South G Street onramp and the Bayside cutoff.

The one just north of the Bayside cutoff sits on property owned by the North Coast Railroad Authority (NCRA), a state agency that’s been trying for the past five years to get signs in its right-of-way taken down. The next four billboards to the north were found to be on property belonging to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, whose employees have also informed both Caltrans and advertising company Outfront Media that they’d like the signs removed.

Here’s a quick refresher on the background:

Two years ago, the California Coastal Commission gave Caltrans the go-ahead for its long-planned Eureka-Arcata Corridor Improvement Project, with a few conditions. For one, the commission said Caltrans must include a Class 1 bicycle trail in the project plans. Another condition: Caltrans must submit a plan to remove every single billboard in the corridor, at least “to the extent feasible.”

The government interest in tearing those suckers down, Coastal Commissioners argued, is to mitigate the visual blight of a new over/under-pass planned at the Indianola cutoff. 

Caltrans’ billboard-removal assignment from the CCC is helped by the fact that both the NCRA and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service are actively pursuing the same goal. The latter agency, late last month, sent a certified letter to Outfront Media, the company (formerly known as CBS Outdoor) that owns the billboards themselves, requesting their removal. The NCRA has done the same, and both agencies have asked Caltrans’ Outdoor Advertising division to revoke the permits.

So why are those five billboards still up? A Caltrans spokesman said the agency still has to go through an administrative review process that gives Outfront Media the chance to appeal the land ownership findings. If the company doesn’t appeal — or if the findings are upheld — then and only then will Caltrans revoke the permits and ask the sign company to take them down.

But the other dozen-plus billboards in the corridor could prove more difficult to remove. Only five 10 of the 21 billboard locations in Caltrans’ survey were found to be on public land. Five have since been removed, either through vandalism, weather events or the bureaucratic process. The rest are on private property, presumably with valid leases and property owners who are just fine with the ads — and the income they bring.

Which brings us back to the Coastal Commission and its edict qualifier — “to the extent feasible.” If Caltrans can’t convince private property owners to abandon their legally valid leases with the billboard company, will the Coastal Commission be satisfied that the agency tried its best? That remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, both Arcata and Eureka continue work on the Bay Trail that locals hope will one day connect the two cities, running parallel to the “improved” corridor. Caltrans has pledged $1 million toward the Bay Trail.

Note: This post has been updated to include information about billboards already removed from public property.