State speed limit increases to be announced Wednesday - but none in metro Detroit

FOX 2 has learned that speed limit increases in the state of Michigan will be announced Wednesday.

The Michigan Department of Transportation and Michigan State Police are increasing speeds on 1,500 miles of freeways and non-freeways in our state, but the bad news is that none of them are in metro Detroit.

The two agencies conducted a safety study and found 600 freeway miles where the speeds could be boosted to 75 miles an hour. That will include the I-75 corridor from Bay City to Mackinac City.

An additional 900 non freeway miles will increase to 65 miles an hour.  All of those are in out-state Michigan.

MDOT will begin posting new speed limits beginning May 1, starting with three freeway routes:

  • I-75 - Bay City to US-23 in Mackinaw City (Bay, Arenac, Ogemaw, Roscommon, Crawford, Otsego, Cheboygan, and Emmet counties), and St. Ignace to Sault Ste. Marie (Mackinac and Chippewa counties)
  • - US-127 - I-69 to the end of the freeway at St. Johns (Clinton County), and the beginning of the freeway at Ithaca to I-75 (Gratiot, Isabella, Clare, Roscommon, and Crawford counties)
  • - US-131 - M-57 to the end of the freeway north of Manton (Kent, Montcalm, Mecosta, Osceola, and Wexford counties)

New speed limits will be posted on those three routes by mid-May. MDOT also will begin installing sign overlays reflecting the new 65 mph speed limit for trucks and buses on state roadways with posted speed limits of 65 mph or greater. The new maximum speed limit for trucks and buses was another change prompted by Public Act 445.

Public Act 445, passed by the state Legislature in late 2016, tasked the two agencies with increasing speed limits on some state highways and freeways based on 85th-percentile speeds (the speed at or below which 85 percent of traffic is moving) and the results of engineering and safety studies. The law requires that these modified speed limits be in place prior to Jan. 5, 2018.

CLICK HERE for a map of the increases.