Anybody have any comments about taking highway 81 north out of York compared with taking the interstate(s) thru Omaha.. when Siouxfalls is the destination? Are there a lot of small towns & stops along 81?
US81, it's faster, easily faster. Great road. Only a little stop-n-go in Columbus and Norfolk and Yankton when you cross the border.
SD 50 is a four-lane expressway east of Yankton; I don't know if it's worth cutting over to I-29 there.
81 is a slightly slower pace, but not even close to worth detouring 50 miles for- if I-29 were 10 miles out of the way I'd say go for it, but don't drive all the way to Iowa just for that.
Quote from: Sykotyk on July 12, 2012, 01:24:37 AM
US81, it's faster, easily faster. Great road. Only a little stop-n-go in Columbus and Norfolk and Yankton when you cross the border.
There's a few small towns on 81 between York and Columbus, but nothing to worry about.
Could take NE 35 from Norfolk to Wayne, NE 15/SD 19 to Vermillion and then SD 50 to I-29. Then again, I don't know what the speed limit is on NE 15, but the only town between Wayne and Vermillion is Laurel. Vermillion may be a pain.
US-81 is damn near interstate. outside of towns, I believe the speed limit is constantly 65 and you should be able to do 71-72.
It is 111 miles to Council Bluffs and I-29. That same distance gets you north of Norfolk on US-81. Another thing to think about is that Iowa's interstate speed limit is 70.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on July 12, 2012, 11:12:02 AM
US-81 is damn near interstate. outside of towns, I believe the speed limit is constantly 65 and you should be able to do 71-72.
I do not recommend that; the Nebraska State Patrol is extremely aggressive towards speeders and seems to not be willing to give even one over the limit. The Patrol seems to be extremely willing to follow those with out of state plates through the progressive speed limit drops around Columbus just waiting to pounce if you miss a sign.
Another thing to consider with Nebraska is that even though there may be a bypass for a town in which you will not even see the town, the speed limit may still drop to some unreasonable level and be enforced.
Depending how soon you take the trip, you may want to consider that I-29 is currently under construction through Sioux City with a long stretch that is posted at 40. And it's photo enforced with a camera that was pointing right over the first speed limit sign for the 40 mph section last spring (although there was advanced warning about the speed reduction and the photo enforcement).
the only time I've ever gotten pulled over in Nebraska was for 61 in a 55. US-77 southbound, just south of Lincoln. Night, overcast, and I was about 50 miles away from driving into a snowstorm. the speed limit on that road goes between 55 and 65 a lot, and I set cruise control to "make up your fucking mind, will ya".
I got a warning, and some advice that the snow was coming.
I keep it under the limit in towns, but out rurally I've not once had a problem going 66 in a 60, or 71 in a 65. the 55 must have been because technically I was still in Lincoln.
Nebraska's speeding fine for 1-5 over is $10. That's ten US dollars. 5-10 is $25. It's really not worth it for them to pull over at less than five over, and barely worth it for less than ten over.
http://www.nebraskatransportation.org/rca/wz/2009/fines.pdf
^ But how much do they charge for the court costs?
Ohio has cheap fines as well, but the court costs and fees are what adds up (although Ohio's tickets are absurdly cheap 14-over cost me $82 and the fines haven't even really gone up since then).
Back to US81, I drove it once from Sioux Falls south. It is a great road. I took I-29 south to US18 to US81. You can zig zag on the other state routes southeast of there. Beware through Vermillion has a lot of lights and the road makes a slight northwest angle that is counter productive. US18 and the other state routes are mostly baron.