Jacob Ogles
A transportation bill that could boost Florida’s speed limits blasted through its final committee stop in the Senate. Now, Sen. Nick DiCeglie will steer legislation to a final vote on the floor.
The Senate Fiscal Policy Committee voted unanimously to advance the bill (SB 462), making a third and final committee stop for the transportation package.
The legislation touches a number of policy areas, including distributing $4.167 million in monthly sales tax revenue to the State Transportation Trust Fund.
It also creates a pilot program at the Sarasota Manatee Airport Authority to determine the long-term feasibility of alternative permitting procedures for multijurisdictional airports, said DiCeglie, a St. Petersburg Republican. On the air front, it also prohibits publicly owned airports from charging certain fees for aircraft operations associated with flight training conducted by collegiate aviation programs.
But one of the most immediate impacts of the bill that consumers will see is an increase in speed limits on many Florida highways.
DiCeglie’s legislation would call for the maximum speed limit on limited access highways to jump from 70 miles per hour to 75 mph. For other highways outside urban areas, meaning those with populations of 5,000 or more, the speed limit would ramp up from 65 mph to 70 mph, so long as there was a median strip dividing the lanes of traffic.
The language filed by DiCeglie would also allow the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) to set maximum speeds for other roads deemed as safe and advisable as high as 65 mph. The agency right now only has discretion to boost the maximum speed on such roads to 60 mph.
A House version of the transportation package is being carried in the lower chamber by Rep. Fiona McFarland, a Sarasota Republican. That bill (HB 567) awaits consideration in the House Transportation & Economic Development Budget Subcommittee.
McFarland, for her part, said the idea of increasing highway speed limits arose in House discussion, and she is happy to include the velocity bump in her bill.
