(a) The department may design, place, and maintain, or cause to be designed, placed, and maintained, along state highways, signs to inform motorists of rail transportation services which receive public funding, in whole or in part, unless the sign would result in incurring the penalty specified in subsection (b) of Section 131 of Title 23 of the United States Code.

(b) These signs may only be placed within the right-of-way of state highways that are parallel or adjacent to publicly funded passenger rail routes.

(c) The signs are information structures or information signs as those terms are used in Sections 5203 and 5221 of the Business and Professions Code.

(Amended by Stats. 1993, Ch. 272, Sec. 9. Effective August 2, 1993.)