Not the most original title, I'll admit. Still...
The Metropolitain (west of the 25) and Highway 40 (east of the 25) is becoming completely overrun with billboards, with the newest trend being the addition of those super-bright and super-annoying electronic billboards, and the increase has been somewhat insidious. It started with just a few, and today there seems to be one every 500 metres or less.
Was the east along Highway 40 not already ugly and blighted enough by the refineries and heavy industry? I guess the landscape was judged to be a waste anyway, so instead of aggressively planting trees and vegetation to keep the dust down and embellish the area and all of the other advantages that trees and veg bring, they made the area even uglier with huge, gaudy billboards. And then came electronic billboards. The next step will be to perch future billboards on higher and higher poles (like the 95 in South Carolina and Georgia), so that the lower signs lose out to the higher ones.
They are now to the point of being visual pollution, loud and invasive, with the electronic ones being especially dangerous because you can't help turn your eyes towards them while you're driving - especially at night. I feel like I'm living inside 'Minority Report' or 'Josie and the Pussycats'. I'm not usually a supporter of initiatives coming out of the Plateau, like parking bans and one-ways that try to keep people from ever entering or crossing the neighborhood and Amir Khadir, but I can't disagree with their attempts to ban billboards.
I expect a "Pedro dit: venez me voir! South of the Border - 1535km" sign to go up any day now.
(After writing this blog, I saw THIS in The Gazette. I guess I'm not the only one...)
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