Michigan Highways to Increase Speed Limit in Future

Started by _Demote, July 23, 2017, 12:36:01 AM

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_Demote

Hello. I haven't posted in a while but I found these articles and I thought I would share them with the AARoads community! I'm a new driver and when I drive on freeways like I-94 and U.S 131, I find myself and other drivers going 75-85 MPH. I'm glad that the state is increasing the speed limit so people can get to their destinations faster. Here are the very interesting articles
http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2017/01/75-mph_speed_limits_officially.html
http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2017/04/see_which_600_miles_of_michiga.html
Interstates Traveled: 80, 90, 190, 290, 294, 94, 194, 96, 196, 75, 275, 69, 469, 65, 465, 165, 565, 55, 40, 640, 17, 10, 110, 610, 5, 405, 11, 71, 24, 20, 12, and 59.


JREwing78

It's been discussed in the Michigan Notes thread pretty extensively.
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=7953.msg2221254#msg2221254

Still waiting for the 65mph limits to get posted in da U.P., eh! But the 75mph limits on certain freeways (and the apparent boost in truck speed limits to 65mph on most freeways) is certainly welcome.

Flint1979

Northern Michigan has 75 mph speed limits. I've seen 75 mph signs on I-75, US 10 and US 127. This was done recently.

froggie

Quote from: JREwing78Still waiting for the 65mph limits to get posted in da U.P., eh!

You haven't been on US 2 east of Rapid River lately, have you?

JREwing78

Quote from: froggie on August 09, 2017, 11:08:25 AM
Quote from: JREwing78Still waiting for the 65mph limits to get posted in da U.P., eh!

You haven't been on US 2 east of Rapid River lately, have you?


No. But that was only done within the last few weeks. They've purposely slow-walked the upgrades, in part because it requires moving signs and restriping passing zones. I haven't seen any articles indicating other routes in the UP changing yet.

Flint1979

Most of the signs they switched to 75 mph they just put the 75 over the 70 and kept the same sign.

20160805

Quote from: JREwing78 on August 09, 2017, 11:52:42 PM
Quote from: froggie on August 09, 2017, 11:08:25 AM
Quote from: JREwing78Still waiting for the 65mph limits to get posted in da U.P., eh!

You haven't been on US 2 east of Rapid River lately, have you?


No. But that was only done within the last few weeks. They've purposely slow-walked the upgrades, in part because it requires moving signs and restriping passing zones. I haven't seen any articles indicating other routes in the UP changing yet.

It's a good thing dey're changing it IMO - on a trip up dere in August with da family (driven by my dad, who speeds a lot more than I do), 55-62 felt rather like a crawl on some of dose rural 2-lane highways.
Left for 5 months Oct 2018-Mar 2019 due to arguing in the DST thread.
Tried coming back Mar 2019.
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getemngo

#7
I've noticed that the truck speed limit has been raised to 65 on some segments of freeway that are staying 70, but the truck speed is still 60 in other places. I'm not sure if it's going up statewide and just taking some time to change all the signs... otherwise, it seems pretty arbitrary.


Quote from: JREwing78 on August 09, 2017, 11:52:42 PM
Quote from: froggie on August 09, 2017, 11:08:25 AM
Quote from: JREwing78Still waiting for the 65mph limits to get posted in da U.P., eh!

You haven't been on US 2 east of Rapid River lately, have you?

No. But that was only done within the last few weeks. They've purposely slow-walked the upgrades, in part because it requires moving signs and restriping passing zones. I haven't seen any articles indicating other routes in the UP changing yet.

US 2/41 west of Rapid River has been 65 for probably 8-10 years. It went up at the same time that US 127 did between St. Johns and Ithaca.
~ Sam from Michigan

JREwing78

I went up US-45 to the Keweenaw last weekend, and back down US-141. Not a whiff of the new 65mph speed limits anywhere. I did see a couple areas with survey stakes that *might* indicate an upgrade is pending, but no new posted speed limit signs.

bulldog1979

Quote from: JREwing78 on October 05, 2017, 08:02:29 PM
I went up US-45 to the Keweenaw last weekend, and back down US-141. Not a whiff of the new 65mph speed limits anywhere. I did see a couple areas with survey stakes that *might* indicate an upgrade is pending, but no new posted speed limit signs.

Except for where US 141 overlaps M-28, that highway is not getting an increased limit. It's apparent that these changes have a low priority. It took mere days to change the freeways over, but it's been months to get other highways switched. I understand that the freeway changes were a lot simpler than the two-lane highways which need revised passing zones, but even specific curves on the freeways needed 70 mph advisor signage installed, so it wasn't just a matter of driving along and switching every speed limit sign.

bessertc

Quote from: bulldog1979 on October 05, 2017, 08:39:52 PM
It's apparent that these changes have a low priority. It took mere days to change the freeways over, but it's been months to get other highways switched. I understand that the freeway changes were a lot simpler than the two-lane highways which need revised passing zones, but even specific curves on the freeways needed 70 mph advisor signage installed, so it wasn't just a matter of driving along and switching every speed limit sign.

Indeed. I did some extensive driving in the UP weekend before last and while US-2 from east of Rapid River to St. Ignace has been posted at 65 since before Labor Day Weekend, I found that M-28 hasn't been touched at all (at least east of the M-95 jct at Koski Corners). It felt quite odd to be doing 65 on US-2 without a care, but to be constantly scanning the horizon watching for State Police on the M-28 "Seney Stretch" also doing 65 (like everyone else does). The Seney Stretch is so flat, straight and boring that I would've almost thought that would've been the first one to get the new signs. It's not like there's a lot of no passing zones through there!  :hmm:

One route that will NOT be going to 65 in the UP, but IMHO should be, is M-95. Long stretches of nothing, no sharp curves, lower traffic volumes than some of the other going-to-65 routes... I wonder if it fell juuuuust below the cutoff on the seemingly arbitrary criteria for what made the 65 bump and what didn't...
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JREwing78

I agree with that "arbitrary" assessment. There's few state highways in the U.P. that couldn't be safely bumped to 65.

bulldog1979

Didn't the law authorizing the increases cap the mileage to which could be increased? If my recollection is true, then yes, they needed some arbitrary criteria to limit the scope of the increases. I wonder if in the future there will be a request for an amendment to the cap to allow additional mileage to get increased.

roadgeek

In actuality the increase from 70 mph to 75 mph is negligible. I read an article, I don't recall where...perhaps from MLive that you'd only save a few minutes on your drive time from Bay City to Mackinaw City. I rarely drive 75 mph as I find 70 mph is adequate. Further the faster you drive increases your fuel consumption.

Now I feel the increase from 55 mph to 65 mph on state roads is more significant...especially for the Upper Peninsula. Since there are no east/west freeways up there this is the next best thing.
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1995hoo

Quote from: roadgeek on November 22, 2017, 10:02:55 AM
In actuality the increase from 70 mph to 75 mph is negligible. ....

Well, look at it this way:

At 60 mph, you're driving one mile per minute.
At 65 mph, you're driving 1.0833 (etc.) miles per minute. ("Etc." denoting a repeating decimal since I don't know of a way to type a viniculum.)
At 70 mph, you're driving 1.1666 (etc.) miles per minute.
At 75 mph, you're driving 1.25 miles per minute.

Put in those terms, it doesn't sound like much of a difference. Obviously the difference between 60 and 75 is more significant than it sounds above. You'd go an extra 30 miles every two hours. But 70 versus 75? It would take six hours to go those extra 30 miles (assuming, of course, that you obey all speed limits and encounter no speed limit changes en route).

Regarding fuel consumption, in theory the ideal speed would be the lowest speed that allows for reasonable cruising in your highest gear without lugging the engine on uphill grades.
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Brandon

Quote from: roadgeek on November 22, 2017, 10:02:55 AM
In actuality the increase from 70 mph to 75 mph is negligible. I read an article, I don't recall where...perhaps from MLive that you'd only save a few minutes on your drive time from Bay City to Mackinaw City. I rarely drive 75 mph as I find 70 mph is adequate. Further the faster you drive increases your fuel consumption.

Now I feel the increase from 55 mph to 65 mph on state roads is more significant...especially for the Upper Peninsula. Since there are no east/west freeways up there this is the next best thing.

What the increase does is to pull the slowpokes up to the speed of the rest of traffic (or at least near).
"If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention." - Ramsay Bolton

"Symbolic of his struggle against reality." - Reg

Terry Shea

Quote from: Brandon on November 22, 2017, 10:37:27 AM
Quote from: roadgeek on November 22, 2017, 10:02:55 AM
In actuality the increase from 70 mph to 75 mph is negligible. I read an article, I don't recall where...perhaps from MLive that you'd only save a few minutes on your drive time from Bay City to Mackinaw City. I rarely drive 75 mph as I find 70 mph is adequate. Further the faster you drive increases your fuel consumption.

Now I feel the increase from 55 mph to 65 mph on state roads is more significant...especially for the Upper Peninsula. Since there are no east/west freeways up there this is the next best thing.

What the increase does is to pull the slowpokes up to the speed of the rest of traffic (or at least near).
In theory maybe.  In actuality, bonehead drivers are still tying up the left lane doing about 55 MPH with people approaching them from the rear going faster now.  Not a good situation.

kphoger

Quote from: 1995hoo on November 22, 2017, 10:12:41 AM
Quote from: roadgeek on November 22, 2017, 10:02:55 AM
In actuality the increase from 70 mph to 75 mph is negligible. ....

Well, look at it this way:

At 60 mph, you're driving one mile per minute.
At 65 mph, you're driving 1.0833 (etc.) miles per minute. ("Etc." denoting a repeating decimal since I don't know of a way to type a viniculum.)
At 70 mph, you're driving 1.1666 (etc.) miles per minute.
At 75 mph, you're driving 1.25 miles per minute.

Put in those terms, it doesn't sound like much of a difference. Obviously the difference between 60 and 75 is more significant than it sounds above. You'd go an extra 30 miles every two hours. But 70 versus 75? It would take six hours to go those extra 30 miles (assuming, of course, that you obey all speed limits and encounter no speed limit changes en route).

Regarding fuel consumption, in theory the ideal speed would be the lowest speed that allows for reasonable cruising in your highest gear without lugging the engine on uphill grades.

More concretely:

170 miles @ 70 mph = 2 hours 26 minutes
170 miles @ 75 mph = 2 hours 16 minutes
Time savings = 10 minutes

I don't think that's negligible at all.

FWIW... the lower the speed limit, the more time you save by driving 5 mph faster.  60/65 is a 13-minute difference over the same 170 miles, 50/55 is a 19-minute difference, and so forth.
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Flint1979

I just know doing 80 mph you make 1 mile every 45 seconds.

JREwing78

Indulge me for a moment - because I've spent way too much time making this particular drive...

If you were to average 65 mph on the 270 miles between Houghton, MI and the Mackinac Bridge (v.s. averaging 55), you'd chop a solid 45 minutes off your trip, going from 4 hours, 55 minutes to 4 hours, 10 minutes.

I say "average", because although you're momentarily slowed down in more populated areas, a typical driver doing 5 over basically cancels the slowdowns.

Now, for the remaining 232 miles to Lansing:

       
  • In 1986, stuck at 55 mph, that trip took you about 4 hours, 12 minutes.
  • After Michigan raised the freeway speed limit to 65 in the late '80s, that trip took about 3 hours, 33 minutes, or a savings of nearly 40 minutes.
  • When Michigan raised the freeway limit to 70 in the late '90s, that trip took 3 hours, 18 minutes, saving an additional 15 minutes.
  • Finally, with the limit at 75 south of the bridge, the trip now takes 3 hours, 6 minutes.

    You've gained an entire hour (and 6 minutes) back of your life!  8-)
Once MDOT raises the rest of the rural U.P. highways to 65, your ~500 mile trip between Houghton and Lansing will go from taking 9 hours, 7 minutes to 7 hours, 16 minutes. You've chopped damn near 2 hours off the trip! That's pretty significant!

Of course, we're assuming it's around Labor Day instead of, say, New Year's Day - lake effect snow has a way of slowing things down.


I now make that trip to Houghton from Janesville, WI. By my rough calculations, the 363 mile trip (via Wausau and Rhinelander) currently takes 5 hours, 48 minutes. If Wisconsin adopted Michigan's maximum speed limits by highway type (and Michigan applied it to all of US-45 and M-26), I'd save about 30  minutes.

Flint1979

What about at 80 mph? That's really what the speed limit should be. I just don't have the time to figure this out.

Bickendan

Quote from: Flint1979 on November 28, 2017, 08:39:03 PM
I just know doing 80 mph you make 1 mile every 45 seconds.
Shouldn't that be 90 mph, not 80?

Brandon

Quote from: Bickendan on November 30, 2017, 03:42:08 AM
Quote from: Flint1979 on November 28, 2017, 08:39:03 PM
I just know doing 80 mph you make 1 mile every 45 seconds.
Shouldn't that be 90 mph, not 80?

No.  60 is 3/4s of 80.  Hence, whatever the mileage is, you multiply by 3 and divide by 4 to get your time in minutes at 80 mph.
"If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention." - Ramsay Bolton

"Symbolic of his struggle against reality." - Reg

Flint1979

Quote from: Bickendan on November 30, 2017, 03:42:08 AM
Quote from: Flint1979 on November 28, 2017, 08:39:03 PM
I just know doing 80 mph you make 1 mile every 45 seconds.
Shouldn't that be 90 mph, not 80?
90 mph is 1 mile every 40 seconds.

JREwing78

St. Ignace to Lansing, averaging 80mph: 2 hours, 54 minutes



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