First Posted: 3/18/2015
COLUMBUS (AP) — A proposal to boost the speed limit to 75 mph on the Ohio Turnpike and rural highways passed the state Senate Wednesday after a panel expanded it to cover all motor vehicles, regardless of their size.
The proposed speed-limit increase comes less than two years after Ohio allowed drivers to go 70 mph.
A change made Wednesday in the $7 billion, two-year transportation budget would let all drivers — including those in trucks, buses and other larger vehicles — travel at 75 mph on certain roadways and the turnpike. The turnpike’s commission could set a lower speed limit if it decides it’s safer in some areas.
The Senate’s transportation committee included the heavier vehicles in the speed-limit increase after a trucking association said it would be safer if all motorists were traveling at the same speed, said Sen. Gayle Manning, the panel’s chairwoman.
“We don’t see it being a problem,” she told reporters.
Senators approved the budget bill on a unanimous vote.
Ohio House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger has questioned whether it’s too soon to raise the speed limit. His chamber passed an earlier version of the bill, which did not include the increase.
The legislation heads next to a conference committee, which will hash out differences in the House and Senate versions.
Senate President Keith Faber, a Celina Republican, told reporters that road conditions should help dictate speed.
“I didn’t know there was a time variant between when you could raise speed limits or not,” he said, when asked whether the proposed boost has come too quickly.
The Senate transportation committee approved the transportation budget on a unanimous vote after it dropped two contentious provisions. One would have blocked local hiring quotas on public construction projects, which Democrats had criticized. Another would have allowed residents to request new or renewed driver’s license that verifies their U.S. citizenship.
Manning, a North Ridgeville Republican, said she opposed the license idea and thought it should be in a separate bill.
“If there’s a reason, or a need for it, give me that reason,” she said.
