Pennsylvania Injury Attorneys Blog
Starting this week, Pennsylvania motorists will begin seeing an increased number of 70 mph speed limit zones on several hundreds of miles Interstate Highways, state highways and turnpikes all over the state.
The new zones include…
- I-79 from I-90 in Erie County, 97 miles south to just north of the PA 228 interchange in Butler County.
- I-79 from I-70 in Washington County, 33 miles south to the West Virginia border.
- I-80 from the Ohio state border, 190 miles east to a point near mile marker 190 in Clinton County.
- I-80 near mile marker 195 in Union County, 52 miles east to a point near mile marker 247 in Columbia County.
- US 15 from the interchange with PA 14 in Lycoming County, 49 miles north to the New York state border.
- I-99 from Exit No. 68 in Centre County, 34 miles south to a point near mile marker 34 in Blair County.
- I-99 from Exit No. 28 in Blair County, 28 miles south to the intersection with the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Bedford County.
- I-380 from I-84 in Lackawanna County, 21 miles south to Exit No. 3 in Monroe County.
PennDOT spend recent weeks installing the new signs on 400 miles of state highways and 396 miles of Pennsylvania Turnpike roads, both of which include Interstate Highways.
Leslie Richards, the Transportation Secretary in the state, said that the increases are an addition to the 200 miles of increases implemented in 2014 after lawmakers approved the changes in 2013. She added that officials took factors such as speed, traffic data and highway features into consideration before deciding where they could safely raise the limits.
The new law also included an increase in motorist taxes and fees that deliver more than $2 billion extra per year for improvements to the state’s road systems and transportation efforts.
Each of the increases are on highways that previously enforced 65 mph zones. However, the increases do not extent to areas that have had high rates of crashes, contain active work zones, feature heavy or weaving traffic patterns or other characteristics that made limit increases less safe.
Pennsylvania joins a list of over 30 other states that already have speed limits of 70 mph or more.