Defoliating 8 Mile - Billboard bill

[Sandhouse]

A new bill in the state Senate [[SB 953, Sen. Casperson) would allow billboard operators to remove vegetation and trees from road medians, to expose billboards on the left-side of freeways. [[At present, billboard owners can cut trees between the right edge of the road and their signs.) A provision in the bill would apply explicitly to 8 Mile, and allow removal of all the trees in the median for 500 feet downstream from any billboard on the left side of M-102. Many of the signs on 8 Mile are two-sided, but the backward-facing ones are obscured by the trees growing in the median.
The bill gets a hearing in the Senate Transportation Committee on Thursday the 26th. Will anybody miss this greenery if this bill passes?

[Shai_Hulud]

Just when you thought 8 Mile couldn't get any uglier. Clear cutting the trees will be a nice complement to the strip clubs, dispensaries and empty industrial property.

[DetroiterOnTheWestCoast]

I am stunned that its a GOP bill.

[downtownguy]

Gee, I wonder if campaign money and lobbyists have anything to do with a republican legislator from the UP showing such an interest in Detroit?

[Baselinepunk]

And the purposeful destruction of the Democrat stronghold continues!

Very soon, Detroit will finally be a Red city -- and only at that time will the punishment cease.

Rise, Grand Rapids ... I say rise and claim your glory as the #1 city in Michigan.

DeVos is a very happy guy these days, and his grin gets biegger and bigger every day folks in Detroit don't realize what's happening to them . . .

[John]

Amazing how a legislator from Escanaba has taken such an interest in the vegetation along 8 Mile Road - over 400 miles from his district.

Casperson is a birther who most recently introduced a "bathroom bill" similar to the one that caused such an uproar in North Carolina.

He also has set his sights on Washington, and will be on the August 2 primary ballot to represent Michigan's 1st Congressional District.

Michigan at its finest.

[Junjie]

Really distasteful. In more civilized parts of the world, they don't even have billboards.

[313WX]

The citizens in one of the state's largest cities don't even know when they'll have safe water to drink/bath in again because of careless actions by said state's leaders, and the students/teachers in the state's largest school districts don't even know if they'll have a job/classroom come Fall also because of careless actions by said state's leaders, yet destroying green space seems to be a top priority for these same leaders.

What a fucked up place this has become. If it weren't for the good-paying auto industry jobs, I'd be out of here.

[Jimaz]

It sounds like something that should be decided on a case-by-case basis.

This appears to be the actual text: SENATE BILL No. 953.

Imagine a world where people lease space on their retinas to advertisers.

[Zacha341]

Hah! Yes, eight mile is weed dispensary road from the rooter to the tooter [[east to west)!

Just when you thought 8 Mile couldn't get any uglier. Clear cutting the trees will be a nice complement to the strip clubs, dispensaries and empty industrial property.

[313WX]

Hah! Yes, eight mile is weed dispensary road from the rooter to the tooter [[east to west)!

To be fair, 8 Mile wasn't necessarily Rodeo Drive before the legalization of Medical Marijuana with the nudie bars on every other block.

Even so, that's no reason to make things worse with this excuse for a bill.

[belleislerunner]

Goes to show you powerful someone can be if they put their mind to it.

I can't tell you one piece of legislation any of the Detroit senators or House reps have started that has passed, signed and is law - so we may as well let others rule over us.