Batt Expects Idaho Speed Limits To Rise Legislation Being Prepared Allowing Speeds Up To 75 Mph

Idaho’s highway speed limits are on their way up, Gov. Phil Batt predicted Monday.

Batt said he expects the Legislature to pass a bill raising the state’s top speed limit to 70 or 75 mph. If it does, he’ll sign it, he said in an interview.

But the governor said he wants to keep the Idaho Transportation Department in charge of which stretches of roads get what specific limits. “Our law reads it’s up to the department, and I think it ought to be,” Batt said. “I want to stay out of it.”

In some other Western states, governors have raised the speed limit on their own since Congress has lifted the national limit. “I don’t think that’s wise,” Batt said, “because I don’t think the executive has the engineering knowledge.”

Sen. Evan Frasure, R-Pocatello, chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, said he’s preparing legislation to raise the maximum speed limit to 70 or 75 mph. His bill also would allow state highways that have been limited to 55 mph to go up to 65 or 70 mph.

The Transportation Board still would make the final call, he said. “I don’t think this legislative body wants to get into micro-managing.”

The state Transportation Board has asked its staff to look into the idea of raising some 55 mph roads to 65, said Jeff Stratten, a Transportation Department spokesman.

Most of Idaho’s interstate highways were engineered for a minimum 70 mph speed limit, Stratten said.

Before 1974, when the national speed limit was imposed, Idaho had 552 miles of interstate highways and 419 miles of state routes with speed limits of 70 mph. More than 2,500 other miles of state roads had speed limits of 60 mph.

Frasure said recent studies show “that’s how fast we’re going anyway.”

He’s also done his own unofficial surveys, watching freeway traffic as he commutes to Boise each week and querying audiences when he speaks to service clubs or other groups.

“It’s pretty heavy in favor of raising the maximum to 75.”

One speed limit bill already has been introduced this session, but it doesn’t address freeway speeds.

Instead, the bill sponsored by Rep. Tom Dorr, R-Post Falls, would set a 25 mph speed limit for residential streets statewide unless cities or counties choose a different limit.

Dorr said he made the proposal after “a constituent who I know very well because I’m married to her had a problem.”

He said his neighborhood outside Post Falls had to have a 25 mph sign posted because otherwise the speed limit would have been 35 mph.

State law sets maximum speeds at 35 for residential or urban districts unless local governments override that.

“To be cruising through at 35 is pretty quick,” Dorr said.

The freshman representative said this is the first bill he’s introduced.

, DataTimes