You’ll be able to drive just a bit faster on some on area highways soon. In fact, one of the changes has already taken place. With the road construction on Interstate 10 near Scenic Highway winding down, the speed limit has been raised back to 70 miles per hour from the Davis Highway exit to the Escambia Bay Bridge. The limit was set at 60 during the road widening project.
The other change has been talked about for a while and will finally happen later this week. Ian Satter, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Transportation says the speed limit on Interstate 110 in Pensacola is being raised to 65 MPH. "The signs should be installed and the entire [length] of that roadway should be 65 [by Friday], January 12".
Interstate 110 runs about six and half miles from Interstate 10 to Chase street and Ninth Avenue in Pensacola. It was completed in 1978 and was rebuilt and expanded in the mid-2000s. FDOT numbers from 2014 show the road handles over 75,000 vehicles a day. Satter says a lot of study is done before a speed limit is changed. "We do a speed study. We have a team of traffic engineers that will go out and look at a roadway. they will determine everything from traffic volume, crashes in the area, the design of the roadway...all of that information is taken into account. And they observe the actual conditions of the roadway as well as observe traffic along the roadway, they take all of the into consideration and they use that data to determine whether of not a speed limit should be raised or lowered. But the number one thing is always going to be safety concerns and congestion."
Local law enforcement and the Florida Highway Patrol say they had no input in this change.
