Here’s why speed limits on some Texas highways may soon drop — at least temporarily
Texan drivers are likely to see a big change to speed limits on certain highways.
Lawmakers have approved a bill that would allow the state to make real-time adjustments to speed limits depending on road conditions. So a stretch of interstate that’s normally 75 mph could drop temporarily to 65 mph because of rain, traffic or construction.
The Texas Transportation Commission, which governs the state Department of Transportation, would set these variable speed limits on the roads where it oversees them.
The bill is headed to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk.
“Variable speed limits would allow Texas Transportation Commission and the TxDOT to respond in real time to road traffic conditions to improve traffic safety and highway capacity on given roadways by temporarily reducing the roadway speed limit,” said Rep. Terry Canales, an Edinburg Democrat who authored the bill, in March.
The maximum the state could lower a speed limit would be 10 mph under the usual limit. A sign letting drivers know of the changed speed limit would have to be posted between 500 and 1,000 feet ahead of where the change starts.
The adjusted speed limit would also have to be based on an engineering and traffic investigation, the bill states.
Variable speed limits was among the recommendations National Transportation Safety Board’s recommendations for Texas following a deadly February 2021 pileup crash on an icy stretch of toll road on Interstate 35W just north of downtown Fort Worth.
“Reduced speeds would also have lessened the severity of the crashes once the vehicles began to slide on the icy road,” NTSB said in a summary of a report released in March. “Had technologies such as variable speed limit signs and speed safety cameras been used, drivers might have been more likely to slow to a speed appropriate for the conditions.”
Opponents of the bill raised concerns that inconsistent speed limits would cause confusion for drivers or could be dangerous when the speed changes drastically.
A spokesperson for the Texas Department of Transportation said the agency wouldn’t comment on pending legislation.
The department told Canales’ office the legislation would apply to all roads on the state highway system, including highways, toll roads, managed lanes and farm to market roads, but not city and county roads that are out of the department’s jurisdiction.
This story was originally published May 18, 2023 at 10:55 AM.
