If you’ve seen headlines this week about Missouri raising highway speed limits to 75 mph, here’s the short version for anyone driving our stretch of mid-Missouri: nothing changes yet, and I-70 isn’t part of it.
ABC 17 News reports that Senate Bill 1408, signed by Governor Mike Kehoe in July, takes effect August 28. It authorizes MoDOT to raise speed limits from 70 to 75 mph on qualifying rural highways and interstate freeways — but the law itself doesn’t flip any switches. It just gives MoDOT the authority to study where a higher limit makes sense.
MoDOT Director Ed Hassinger put it bluntly: “Don’t think on August 28th that automatically I can drive faster than the posted speed limit. The sign that’s up is the speed limit until it changes.” Nothing posted on any road around here changes on the 28th. MoDOT plans to finish reviewing eligible locations by the end of the year and will announce which highways, if any, actually get bumped up after that.
What it means for the roads we actually drive
MoDOT says it’ll weigh traffic volume, truck traffic, crash history, terrain, and road design at each location — plus what speed limits look like on comparable highways just across the state line. No specific roads in Boone, Howard, or Cooper counties have been named yet as candidates.
One highway that’s already off the table: I-70. Hassinger’s agency has said the interstate won’t see any speed changes during the current construction phase of the Improve I-70 program — the widening project that’s already reshaping stretches of the interstate between here and Kingdom City. So if you’re picturing 75 mph through the work zones between Boonville and Rocheport, that’s not what’s on the table.
What is on the table, eventually, is a possible bump on some of the two-lane rural highways that connect our towns to the interstate — the kind of roads MoDOT’s criteria describe. We don’t know yet which ones, and neither does MoDOT; that’s what the year-end review is for. Until a new number actually goes up on a sign, the posted limit is still the law — same as it’s always been.