Voters have defeated a measure to allow advertising signs and billboards along a small area on one of San Francisco's major roadways.

Proposition D would have allowed the signs on mid-Market Street and a percentage of the proceeds would have been used to fund youth cultural and arts education.

But 54 percent of those voting in Tuesday's election rejected the measure.

Supporters say the signs would have provided a spark to a downtrodden neighborhood. But opponents say the notion that big, unattractive signs could do what decades of City Hall plans haven't done is ridiculous.

"We always thought it would be very close," David Addington, owner of the Warfield Building, who's been pushing Prop. D said Tuesday night.