How fast should we go?
By Barb Kromphardt
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bkromphardt@bcrnews.com
Think traffic moves just a little bit too slowly along Interstate 80?
At least one area politician does. Sen. Dale Risinger, R-Peoria, has sponsored legislation to increase interstate speed limit for all vehicles to 70 mph.
“I drive to Florida and out west, and every state is 70 miles per hour or higher, higher than Illinois,” Risinger said.
As a former highway engineer for the Illinois Department of Transportation, Risinger worked on the design and construction of the interstate highways, which he said were originally designed for speeds of 80 mph.
The speed limit was dropped to 55 mph in 1974 due to the energy crisis, but Risinger said it was raised in 1995 after many studies showed the nation was not saving a lot of energy with the lower speed limit.
Now Risinger would like to see it raised a little bit more.
Last week, the Senate Executive Committee voted 7-5 to move Senate Bill 3668 to the Senate floor. The bill would let both cars and trucks travel 70 miles per hour on interstate highways, except in Chicago and the surrounding counties. The change would bring Illinois in line with 33 other states.
Risinger testified in favor of the bill and said the 70 mph speed limit would not greatly increase fuel consumption or make highways less safe. He said with most accidents, the driver may have been speeding, but speeding was the cause of the accident in only a very few cases.
Risinger said he has received a mixed reaction from his constituents, with some in favor of the change and others not.
“Many people are afraid of how fast trucks are already moving,” he said.
Although the legislation should be headed to the Senate floor, instead it’s on its way back to the committee due to a drafting error. Normally such a change would be procedural and automatically approved, but due to the original close vote, Risinger said it’s not 100 percent certain the bill will make it out of committee again.
“We’ll have to see what happens,” he said.
Even if the bill does make it out of committee, it has a long road to travel before becoming law. The bill needs to pass the entire Senate by the end of next week. Risinger said that while the bill has a “decent” chance to pass in the Senate, he has heard the committee in the House of Representatives is not in favor of changing the speed limit.
But Risinger is philosophical.
“We need to get the bill out and get people thinking about it,” he said. “Then when they travel, they’ll see the other states are all over 70 miles per hour.”
