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[austrini]

From: http://www.nbcdfw.com/traffic_autos/transit/55-mph-70-mph-121-Drivers-Just-Go-With-the-Flow.html
In reference to a new stretch of SH 121 that opened several weeks ago connecting the two disparate free-flow portions north of DFW Airport.

"Watch your speed while traveling Highway 121 near Grapevine Mills mall, because police are writing tickets along the area where the speed limit is clearly posted.

"There's one 55-mph speed limit sign. Then under the bridge, you will often see a police officer," motorist Lisette O'Neill said.

But some drivers said there is confusion about the speed limit on a stretch of Highway 121 before the new tollway.

"I think the signage here in this area is absolutely horrible," Jack Jewell said. "I don't know what the speed limit is."

It has been a common complaint since the Highway 121 tollway opened a few weeks ago.

A 55-mph speed limit sign at Bass Pro is the first speed limit sign motorists traveling northbound on Highway 121 see. But once they travel north toward the new tollway, the speed limit is up in the air.

Other than a few exit ramp postings, the only other speed limit sign motorists see is four miles away, when they happen upon a 70-mph posting just prior to the tollgates in Coppell.

A representative from the Texas Department of Public Safety said the speed limit for the time being is a non-posted 60 mph.

"I just kind of do what the other traffic's doing," O'Neill said.

The southbound lanes, however, are more clearly posted. The speed limit is 70 mph south of the tollgates and drops to 55 mph in Grapevine.

The Texas Department of Transportation will conduct a traffic study within the next week and then recommend speed limits to local city governments, which must approve the speed limits before they can be posted.

In the meantime, Grapevine police will be patrolling.

"An excess of speed anywhere -- 70 mph-plus -- we're going to see as alarming and concerning," said Grapevine police Sgt. Kim Smith."

[Revive 755]

The Texas Department of Transportation will conduct a traffic study within the next week and then recommend speed limits to local city governments, which must approve the speed limits before they can be posted.

Texas has a similar lousy requirement as Missouri that local governments must approve speed limits? 

[austrini]

Evidently! I didnt know that.

[J N Winkler]

The current fiction, as I understand it, is that speed limits are done by minute order and have to be reapproved after a set period of time (6 months, I think), otherwise they revert to certain default values based on the type and location of road.