The Maine Department of Transportation of Transportation will be changing signs Tuesday along a 110-mile section of Interstate 95 from Old Town (about 10 miles northeast of Bangor) to Houlton (on the Maine/New Brunswick border, the northern terminus of I-95).
Several East Coast states have maximum speed limits of 70 mph, but Maine becomes the first to go up to 75 since Congress repealed the 65 mph national maximum speed limit in 1995. Maine is also the first New England state to increase its top limit above 65.
A dozen Western states have 75 mph maximum speed limits; Utah and Texas have the highest limits at 80 mph on some portions of the Interstate Highway System.
Residents of northeast Maine had asked for the change, saying no one obeyed the old 65 mph limit anyway, the Associated Press reported.
“Up here, we’re isolated,” Rick Castonguay, a real estate broker in Presque Isle, told AP. “Going down that stretch of the interstate, it’s pretty straight. It’s trees, trees, trees. You can literally sit on that road, set your cruise control and watch the trees go by.”
Transportation Department spokesman Mark Latti told AP that MaineDOT bases its speed limits on the speed at which 85% of motorists travel. Highway surveys along this stretch of I-95 showed that percentage of drivers were going 74 to 75 mph.
More information about speed limits in each state is available from Wikipedia at bit.ly/USspeedlimits.
