Lawmaker Seeks To Boost Speed Limit On Interstate 35E To 55 Mph
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A Minnesota state lawmaker has an idea to improve one of the Twin Cities' most used highways – up the speed limit.
The bill targets a stretch of Interstate 35E in St. Paul, where the speed limit is 45 mph, not 55 mph.
Here's a little known fact: It took 26 years to complete Interstate 35E in St Paul, because neighbors opposed it.
Construction finally completed in 1990 after years of court challenges ended in an agreement to set the speed at 45 mph.
But the speed limit is regularly ignored on that stretch of freeway just south of the State Capitol and St. Paul downtown.
Republican Rep. Pat Garofalo, of Farmington, says the 45 mph speed limit is "silly."
"Like a lot of people from Farmington and the southwest Metro, I drive on 35E, and every day I cross that bridge I say to myself, 'Why is it 45 miles an hour on this freeway?'" Garofalo said. "It makes no sense, it serves no public purpose, a road should be 55 mph!"
Garofalo wants to simply raise the speed limit, but, if he can't do that, he has a bill to ban police from issuing speeding tickets to anyone going 55 mph and under.