Lynchburg, VA Sign Regulations: Freeway-Facing Signs (2026)

Lynchburg's billboard setback standard targets structures aimed at drivers on limited-access highways through the city. Sec. 16(b) requires that any billboard located within 300 feet of the centerline of a limited-access highway, and readable from it, be set back at least 500 feet from an exit ramp; the distance is measured along the highway centerline in the direction traffic approaches the ramp, starting from where a line perpendicular to the centerline crosses the beginning of the nearest exit ramp. The same paragraph bars placing a new billboard where it would obstruct the view of an existing advertising structure from a point 300 feet up the highway.

Beyond the ramp setback, paragraph (c) requires billboards to sit at least 500 feet apart from one another, though paragraph (d) exempts sign pairs separated by buildings or other obstructions so that only one is visible from the road at a time. Paragraph (e) layers on a use-based buffer: except along limited-access highways themselves, no billboard may sit within 150 feet of land zoned for or used as residential development, a church, playground, school, or public park. Paragraph (f) adds a location-specific ban, prohibiting any new billboard within 1,320 feet of the John Lynch Memorial Bridge or the Carter Glass Bridge, both James River crossings the City wanted kept free of new advertising structures.

Together these distance rules apply on top of the 675-square-foot area cap and 40-foot height ceiling that govern every billboard in the city, and any billboard that predates the ordinance and cannot meet them is grandfathered as a nonconforming structure rather than ordered removed outright.