Rapides Parish, LA Sign Regulations: Freeway-Facing Signs (2026)

Rapides Parish Code § 20½-1, in Chapter 20½, Signs, bans off-premises outdoor advertising, meaning billboards advertising a business or product not located on the same site, within visual observation of the main travelled way of Interstate Highway 49 anywhere in unincorporated Rapides Parish. The ban excludes all incorporated municipalities within the parish, so Alexandria, Pineville, Ball, Boyce, Cheneyville, Forest Hill, Glenmora, Lecompte, McNary, and Woodworth set their own billboard rules along the interstate inside their own limits. S. 25. Any billboard lawfully erected before August 21, 1992 is grandfathered and does not have to meet the interchange-and-activity test.

The section also states plainly that meeting its own requirements does not excuse a sign from any other local, state, or federal law governing outdoor advertising on interstate highways, so a sign owner still has to separately clear the state DOTD's own outdoor advertising control permitting along the interstate right-of-way. The ordinance was adopted November 10, 1992, and the Code's editor notes it was inserted at section 20½-1 because the 1992 ordinance did not specify where in the code it should be codified.