The sneaky messaging posted on California highways

Motorists traveling northbound on Interstate 280 in the middle of San Francisco may have noticed the peculiar “Adopt-A-Highway” sign on the shoulder before exiting onto San Jose Avenue. 

While the green placards have become commonplace for California highways, this one stands out due to the name of caretaker of this stretch of I-280: Smelly Mel’s Plumbing, Inc.

The sign with a catchy business name has been a fixture since 2017 when the South San Francisco-based plumbers took over stewardship. It’s the second highway the company has adopted in the Bay Area, after first tending to a part of Highway 35 near Skyline College.

Josh Humphrey, Smelly Mel’s operations director, explained to SFGATE that it costs $385 a month to clean up the highway. He said the company’s owners commute from Pacifica to South San Francisco and were inspired to adopt the two highways after noticing the conditions on the shoulders.

“It’s not only a way to give back, but also great advertising,” he said. “Over the years, 20 people called and said they called because they saw the highway sign.”

The Sisyphean task of cleaning California’s highways is accomplished by breaking up the state highways into sections that are directly sponsored by local businesses, organizations or individuals. In return, their names and sometimes logos appear on signs on the side of the highway. 

Since Caltrans launched the program in 1989, it’s saved taxpayers $19 million a year, according to the state of California’s website, which calls it “one of the truly successful government-public partnerships of our time.” In the Bay Area, there are currently 840 adopted highways across the nine counties with 207 vacant sections that the agency has to look after, Caltrans told SFGATE.

The agency said the public-private partnership keeps the roads in working order while allowing its maintenance crews to focus on normally scheduled maintenance work and emergency work when needed.

While the program has meant decades of clean roadways, over the years and across the state the signs have sometimes triggered controversies over who gets to adopt a highway and publicize their name. 

A sign for online gallery “The Art of Satan” appeared off Interstate 5 a few years ago near Redding. It was posted in response to a biblical verse used for an adopted sign nearby. 

Caltrans said it does not consider these advertisements. Matt O’Donnell, Caltrans spokesperson for Marin County, wrote in an email to SFGATE that, “although there is advertising value inherent in Adopt-A-Highway signs, they are not intended to be an advertising medium.”

Under the banner of “civic responsibility and community pride,” Caltrans wrote in a 2010 fact sheet, the business is offered a courtesy sign to recognize the contribution. 

For safety reasons, the businesses themselves do not typically go out onto the sides of the highway to pick up trash. “Cleaning up is great for the environment but a human life is more important than 17 cigarette butts on the side of the road,” Humphrey said. Instead, Caltrans encourages adopting entities to hire a specialized company. 

Smelly Mel’s contracts with Adopt-A-Highway Litter Removal Service of America, Inc., one of several third-party companies working in the state on behalf of Caltrans and whichever business adopts the highway. 

“It’s a feel-good thing but when you get into the nitty-gritty, you expect that local people are the ones cleaning it up,” Humphrey said, adding that Smelly Mel’s has organized the occasional cleanup with its employees in the past. “But Caltrans really governs all of that. They prefer you hire an outside company that has the safety implementation and knows the regulations.”

Michele Waldron, executive vice president of Adopt-A-Highway Litter Removal Service of America, said it’s worked with the Adopt-A-Highway program since its inception in 1989. 

Caltrans determines when its crews go out for a cleaning. Waldron said they work on about 100 locations throughout the Bay Area and that local sponsors tend to renew their contracts indefinitely since there’s a high demand to appear on signs on the region’s roadways. 

Waldron said she understands why people are critical of billboards but in this case, they’re at least used for getting the highways cleaned. It’s an easy compromise to address a public issue that shows no signs of ever getting solved. 

“That’s the one thing that’s tough,” Waldron said. “We might clean and then shortly thereafter, someone throws something out the window.”