Is Minnesota Doing Away With The 55 MPH Speed Limit? Five Year Study Looks At Increased Speeds On Some Roadways

I'm old enough to remember when 55 MPH first became the National Maximum Speed Law.  Since that time, I've seen the limit repealed on a lot of roadways.  Now it appears like more highways in Minnesota will see increased speeds.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation is entering its third year of evaluating the 55 MPH speed limit on all two-lane highways in the state.  The five year study was mandated by the state legislature to make recommendations about increasing the speed to 60 MPH.

Of the roads studied in 2014 and 2015, 1,190 miles were raised to 60 miles per hour and 305 miles remained at 55, according to MNDOT’s speeds limit report to the Legislature released Jan. 15, 2016.  In 2016, MNDOT will evaluate speed limits on 1,068 miles of roads.

Minnesota has about 7,000 miles of two-lane, two-way roads. About 5,000 of these miles cross the borders of different MNDOT districts and require coordination between the districts. The remaining 2,000 miles that don’t cross district boundaries were not assigned for study. They will be studied but the schedule is left to the discretion of the districts.

Not all roads studied will be approved for an increase. The increases are based on a traffic and engineering investigation of each location, which includes looking at past crash rates, physical attributes of the highway such as shoulder widths and access points, and what speed drivers are currently driving.

55 MPH became the national standard for maximum speed in 1974 - as an answer to both the energy crisis and safety concerns.  In 1987 the limit was revised to allow an increase to 65 MPH on some roadways.  Congress repealed the law in 1996 - turning control of speed limits on highways back to the state level.