Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’ appointees to the citywide Planning Commission approved a plan Thursday to install about 80 digital billboards on properties owned by Metro, the region’s transit agency.

The committee voted 6-0 to support Metro’s request for new electronic signs outside Metro stations, along commercial boulevards and next to freeway interchanges throughout the city. Planning Commissioner Jacob Noonan praised Metro’s proposal, which could generate as much as $500 million in advertising revenue over 20 years, calling it “innovative.”

“I’m not really against digital billboards and signage because I worked in West Hollywood for almost a decade and saw what you can really do with digital billboards,” he said. “So I think this is exciting. I think it’s an exciting and interesting way to create additional revenue streams.”

The digital sign program will now go to the city council for review. Holly Rockwell, a senior executive officer at Metro, said she hopes the city will take up the billboard program by the end of the year.

Metro officials said their signage program would provide a new platform for posting traffic and public safety warnings to drivers on the Westside, in the San Fernando Valley, around downtown and in other parts of the city. In addition, nearly 300 existing non-electronic billboards, more than a third of which are on Metro property, would be removed in exchange for the installation of the new digital signs, agency officials said.

“We’re actually removing distractions from the roads,” Rockwell told the committee.

Revenue from the new digital signs would be split 50-50 between Metro and the city, with proceeds going to transportation initiatives.

Critics said the commission’s decision, if upheld by the council, would make L.A. roads less safe, leaving drivers distracted by images that change every eight seconds. Under Metro’s plan, seven of the eight images would be advertisements.

So far, at least 15 neighborhood councils have spoken out against Metro’s plan, with many saying the new signs would cause visual damage.

Patrick Frank, president of Scenic Los Angeles, said Angelenos have repeatedly shown their support for Metro, approving a series of sales tax increases over the decades that help pay for the agency’s operations. The most recent was Measure M, the half-cent sales tax increase passed in 2016.

“I want Metro to be fully funded,” he said. “But there is a way to do it without degrading our visual environment.”

Metro’s proposal calls for placing digital billboards at or near landmarks such as Union Station, Pershing Square, Universal Studios and Los Angeles International Airport. About eight of the new signs, or one-tenth of the total, would be placed within the Boyle Heights Community Plan, according to the commission’s report.

An attorney for Metro dismissed critics’ safety warnings and said state and federal agencies have found no link between electronic signs and traffic accidents. Yet some in the committee did not sound entirely reassured.

Commissioner Ilissa Gold said she remains “very skeptical” about the safety problems digital signs cause. Committee chairwoman Samantha Millman called digital billboards “a touchy subject” and said the panel is “experimenting with something that hasn’t been done before in the city.”

Millman said she was partly reassured by the fact that each sign will have “louvers,” which will limit the amount of light spillover.

The committee denied Metro’s request to keep the digital signs running until 2 a.m., instead recommending they be turned off at midnight. The panel also removed six digital billboards from the overall plan, following the recommendation of city planning officials.

Two were planned near Union Station downtown, while four others were planned near the 2 Freeway, not far from a site known as the “bow tie,” which is expected to become a public park.

Metro’s sign proposal is supported by Bass and Council President Paul Krekorian, who serve on Metro’s 13-member board, which signed off on the environmental review for the billboard initiative earlier this year.

The digital billboard plan has also received support from construction unions, especially those representing iron and electrical workers. Representatives of these groups said the electronic signs would create jobs and provide motorists with important public safety messages, such as Amber alerts about missing children.

Others at the meeting said the ad revenue would help Metro pay for additional safety measures on its buses and trains, such as the unarmed ambassador program.

Opponents of the sign plan said they have already contacted their council members

with some expressing concerns about Metro’s plan

. Councilman Hugo Soto-Martnez, who represents much of Hollywood, has asked for more information about Metro’s plan for digital signs outside two Metro stations on Vermont Avenue, one on Santa Monica Boulevard and the other on Beverly Boulevard.

An aide to Councilmember Traci Park, who represents part of the Westside, said her boss is concerned about the emergence of visual blight in her district, which stretches from LAX north to Pacific Palisades, and the possibility of distracted drivers . The council member also believes there has been insufficient community outreach, said Jamie Paige, a spokesperson for Park.