The impact of local planning which ignores the visual quality of the landscape can most easily be seen in Monroe County in the amount of signage along the roadways. Too many of the County's "scenic roads" are no longer scenic. This can be seen in 'View Quality from Roads' which shows the visual quality of the view from public roads and viewpoints.
There are two kinds of signs: "rooted" and "non-rooted." Rooted signs are those whose message is physically and properly connected to the place. Non-rooted signs are those that are dislocated from the place of the message. The latter are most of the billboards that overwhelm the scenic potential of these roads. Because of this, we recommend enacting regulations that would remove "non-rooted" signs from scenic roads and also ban new ones.
