70 MPH Speed Limit Increase To 70 In Pennsylvania???

[Interstatefan78]

What about seeing 60 mph on I-78 from Carpentersville Road to exit 75 toll plaza, and PA-33 going 70 mph from I-78 exit 71 to PA-512 in Wind Gap again these two Lehigh Valley freeways see drivers going over the 55-65 mph speed limit

[MASTERNC]

Turnpike will still play games with the speed limit:

70
Work Zone 55
(9 covered work zone speed limit signs in a row, spread out over a few miles, no actual work being done)
Oh look, still 55.

I wish they'd just buy a bunch of VSL signs for their work zones and be done with it.  They have to have a few signs around - they were in use in 2005 just west of the Allegheny Tunnel, when that section west to Donegal was either 55 or 65 (based on conditions).

[MASTERNC]

Unfortunately it doesn't sounds like we'll see a ton of 70 MPH signs.  It sounds a lot like North Carolina (which I believe does not post 70 MPH everywhere it could, especially along I-85).

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2013/12/09/the-bar-is-high-for-new-pa-70-mph-speed-limit/

The state transportation secretary says probably fewer than half of the miles on Pennsylvania's Interstate highways are in line for the new 70 mile an hour speed limit.

But Schoch says for one thing, he won't approve a 70 mile an hour speed limit for short stretches of the Interstates.

"We're not going to go through and let it go up to 70 miles an hour for ten miles and then back down to 65. It'll be for long stretches of segments of roadway,"  Schoch says.

Schoch also says he does not intend to opt for the higher limit on Interstates in urban areas where the speed limit is 55.

[mc78andrew]

Does anyone else think that the entire stretch of I-380 would qualify for 70 MPH?

[jeffandnicole]

How about rural areas that are still 55 mph??

[froggie]

How about rural areas that are still 55 mph??

US 30 east of York being a prime example.  If PA 33 south of Wind Gap can be 65, there's no reason why US 30 can't be...

[jpi]

Agreed Froggie. I do 70MPH on a regular basis on that stretch of US 30 when I am in the area like last week.

[MASTERNC]

After months of waiting, it sounds like PennDOT plans to raise some speed limits this summer.

However, don't expect 70 on long stretches of the PA Turnpike, at least for now.

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2014/05/70_mph_speed_limits_coming_to_1.html

[jeffandnicole]

On a recent drive out to Ohio on the PA Turnpike, it appeared going Eastbound there was a 70mph sign after the last Ohio toll plaza, but no reduced limit after entering PA until approaching the first PA Turnpike toll plaza. If that's true, then there is a short 1/2 mile stretch of 70 mph in PA! (My return trip didn't involve 76, so I couldn't confirm this myself)

I'm wondering what this paragraph meant:

Department of Transportation spokesman Rich Kirkpatrick also declined to shed any light on which highways are being considered for the higher speed limit. He said details are still being worked out.

What 'Details' could they be talking about? They're not negotiating a contract...they're supposed to be determining what roads are safe for 70 mph.

And the Florida stuff? Completely irreverent for this article.

[J Route Z]

100% support raising the speed limit to 70 on the PA Turnpike, especially in the very rural areas. Where, is a good question. Perhaps past Harrisburg? You have long stretches of rural road here. Also, I wonder if it would make sense to raise I-476 to 70 mph in the Poconos. I-380, I-80, I-81 and I-84 should definitely be raised to 70.

[Interstatefan78]

100% support raising the speed limit to 70 on the PA Turnpike, especially in the very rural areas. Where, is a good question. Perhaps past Harrisburg? You have long stretches of rural road here. Also, I wonder if it would make sense to raise I-476 to 70 mph in the Poconos. I-380, I-80, I-81 and I-84 should definitely be raised to 70.

What about the Lehigh Tunnel between exit 56 and 74 on I-476 that has a 55mph limit as of now and I would do 70 mph from exit 20 to the South Portal of the Lehigh Tunnel and raise the Tunnel's speed limit to 60 mph then 70 mph from the North Portal of the Lehigh Tunnel to exit 115. Lastly exits 115-131 go 60mph

[SteveG1988]

100% support raising the speed limit to 70 on the PA Turnpike, especially in the very rural areas. Where, is a good question. Perhaps past Harrisburg? You have long stretches of rural road here. Also, I wonder if it would make sense to raise I-476 to 70 mph in the Poconos. I-380, I-80, I-81 and I-84 should definitely be raised to 70.

What about the Lehigh Tunnel between exit 56 and 74 on I-476 that has a 55mph limit as of now and I would do 70 mph from exit 20 to the South Portal of the Lehigh Tunnel and raise the Tunnel's speed limit to 60 mph then 70 mph from the North Portal of the Lehigh Tunnel to exit 115. Lastly exits 115-131 go 60mph

The problem with tunnels is that there is a reduced margin of safety through them. Road conditions inside the tunnel could possibly be damp when all around it the roads are dry due to condensation. Also reduced manuvering space for when something goes wrong.

[US 41]

"The trend toward 70 is only a few years old in most states, so data on whether it makes roads more deadly is still unclear."

Was this opinion piece written in 1998? 

What this line also means is that deaths are still down, but we'll wait a few more years and when they go up statewide, we can report back that the highways are now deadlier...even if the increase in deaths was due to pedestrian accidents on 25 mph roadways.

Reporters also use whichever statistic suits their own agenda, which usually means raw numbers of fatalities rather than the fatality rate. Put differently, if 10 people drive in a given state in one year and one person dies, and then the next year 200 people drive in that state and five people die, statistically you're much less likely to die in the second year even though "more people were killed."

The reporters also like to obscure the difference between correlation and causation, as it's too simple just to say "speed limit went up–more accidents–therefore it's due to the speed limit." Unless you can keep all other variables on the road the same, you can't know that for certain, and as a practical matter it's impossible to keep all other variables the same (volume of traffic, vehicular composition of traffic, road construction, weather conditions, etc.).

It reminds me of a medical study that was released during the 1990s that said that researchers had found that women who wear bras are 90% more likely to develop breast cancer than women who don't wear them. Problem is, since more than 95% of women in Western societies wear those things, the statistic is utterly meaningless. Of course they're more likely to develop cancer if such an overwhelming majority of them wear them–or, in other words, it's a false correlation, since if that many women wear them the cause is almost certainly something else.

70 isn't even that fast. I find myself pushing 75 or 80 on I-70 all the time. 65 is ridiculous. If people think 70 is too fast they need to just stay off the interstate.

[rickmastfan67]

KDKA TV-2 here in Pittsburgh is going to have a story tomorrow @ 6PM about why there hasn't been any 70MPH signs posted yet.  Once they put that video up on their site, I'll link it here.

[PHLBOS]

En route to/from Carlisle this past Saturday, I noticed some recently-erected curve warning & speed advisory signs along the way.  The ones located east of Lebannon-Lancaster (Exit 266/PA 72) had 60 MPH advisory panels but the ones west of there had 65 MPH panels. 

One has to wonder if the latter 65 MPH advisories could give hint to the speed limit(s) on those particular stretches of the Turnpike increasing to 70 mph down the road.

[jeffandnicole]

Someone posted on the Wikipedia that the PA Turnpike & I-78 were at 70 mph.  Their referenced info only seems to refer to the general authorization for 70 mph in the state, and nothing specific.  When I saw that listing yesterday, someone had added "This is inaccurate".  When I looked again today, that comment was removed.

[1995hoo]

Someone posted on the Wikipedia that the PA Turnpike & I-78 were at 70 mph.  Their referenced info only seems to refer to the general authorization for 70 mph in the state, and nothing specific.  When I saw that listing yesterday, someone had added "This is inaccurate".  When I looked again today, that comment was removed.

It should be removed. Rather than saying it's inaccurate, the person disputing it should simply remove the 70-mph reference. But for a website that has pretensions of being an encyclopedia to contain a statement that its own content is inaccurate is obviously untenable!

[jeffandnicole]

Yeah, I thought that was an odd statement.  And why remove that statement but not the erroneous statement?  Oh well...such is the life of the Wikipedia contributers...

[Avalanchez71]

Wow we have 70 MPH zones that even get into Nashville as well here in Tennessee.

[Brandon]

Wow we have 70 MPH zones that even get into Nashville as well here in Tennessee.

In Illinois, the 70 mph zones are everywhere but much of the Chicago area, through Springfield, through Peoria, through Moline, and parts of Metro East.

In Michigan, the limit is 70 unless there are engineering considerations.  This means that most of the freeways are 70 mph except for short stretches of I-75, I-94, I-96, M-10 in Detroit, as well as I-375 and M-39, and a short stretch of I-196 in Grand Rapids.  The 70 zones even extend well into Detroit itself.

[1995hoo]

Yeah, I thought that was an odd statement.  And why remove that statement but not the erroneous statement?  Oh well...such is the life of the Wikipedia contributers...

I'd guess the person who removed the "this is inaccurate" statement had no way of verifying which of the two was correct–that is, whether 70 mph has been posted or whether it is inaccurate to say it has.

[jeffandnicole]

Yeah, I thought that was an odd statement.  And why remove that statement but not the erroneous statement?  Oh well...such is the life of the Wikipedia contributers...

I'd guess the person who removed the "this is inaccurate" statement had no way of verifying which of the two was correct—that is, whether 70 mph has been posted or whether it is inaccurate to say it has.

What's funny is stuff like this ain't specialized knowledge - they are roads that hundreds of thousands of people drive on daily, and they can clearly see the lack of 70 mph signage.  Even if the roads were posted at 70, the sentence still wouldn't be correct because not all of the PA Turnpike and 78 would be posted at 70; only certain sections would be 70.

Besides, a friend of mine sent me a message saying I'll like Ohio now because of the 70 mph limit...even though he knew I was out there several times over the past few years...when it was already 70 mph.  If he got that excited about the 70 limit in Ohio, he would've sent me the same message while in PA.

[1995hoo]

I just took a look at the article in question. The relevant text read as follows:

In Pennsylvania the maximum speed limit is a non-uniform limit of 70 mph (113 km/h) on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and Interstate 78 and 65 mph (105 km/h) for all other rural freeways. The speed limit in urban freeways ranges from a low of 50 mph in downtown Pittsburgh and Philadelphia to 65 mph in some areas. Before November 2013, all Interstates and the Turnpike had 65 mph limits. The 70-mph speed limit was authorized by House Bill 1060 which was signed by Governor Corbett on November 25, 2013.

Somebody edited this so that, following "Interstate 78," it included the parenthetical notation "(This is inaccurate)," with no other changes to any of this text (it could stand to have the writing and punctuation cleaned up a bit).

It may not necessarily be incorrect as written because Pennsylvania state law does authorize a 70-mph speed limit, even if none have been posted yet. I'm not inclined to look up the law's text, or to go back over this thread, to verify whether the new law restricts 70-mph limits to the Turnpike and I-78 or whether it allows them elsewhere, such as on I-79 and I-80 (to give but two examples). I suspect it's the latter. I wouldn't be surprised if they'd restricted the 70-mph limit to Interstates, though.

In general, Wikipedia's "Speed Limits in the United States" article has turned into a mess because people keep larding it up with tons of minutia that simply don't merit inclusion in that sort of article. It's the usual problem where if the article includes a generally-applicable statement, somebody immediately feels the need to note an exception applicable to some small area. It's simply not all that important in a survey article of this sort that a smidgen of I-395 in DC has a 35-mph speed limit where the road descends towards the Third Street Tunnel, for example–that information is more suited for the article on that particular road. But every time I think about trying to clean up the mess, the amount of effort that would be required is off-putting, especially because the same people will just throw all the crap back in again.

[PHLBOS]

As of this past June 21, I was on I-78 from I-81 to US 22 (Exit 51, near Allentown) and saw no 70 mph signs whatsoever.

[MASTERNC]

KDKA TV-2 here in Pittsburgh is going to have a story tomorrow @ 6PM about why there hasn't been any 70MPH signs posted yet.  Once they put that video up on their site, I'll link it here.

Their timing is perfect. The PTC just announced a 70 MPH zone from Blue Mountain to Morgantown (97 miles). This is consistent with the curve signs near Lancaster mentioned by another poster. Signs start going up Wednesday.

Sounds like the future of other changes for the Turnpike will be announced next week.

http://www.tribune-democrat.com/latestnews/x1667069940/Speed-limit-70-coming-to-turnpike