The latest local news, weather and high school sports from the Heartland

MACON, MO --
Have you ever wondered why the speed limit between Macon and Jacksonville is 65 instead of 70?

It turns out the shoulders of the road have nothing to do with it.MoDOT officials say the road has a four-foot shoulder, and it's the layout of the hills that make a difference.

“The section just south of Macon down to Jacksonville, we've kept it 65 miles per hour in order to facilitate the type of roadway that's on the southbound lanes. It's the old highway and it just doesn't have the proper geometry to house the speed limit any higher than that,” said MoDOT District Engineer Dan Niec.

If you're one of those people who wanted the speed limit to stay 65 on Highway 63, you'll soon get your wish.

“What we're looking to do on the entire 63 corridor from Adair all the way to the Route 22 interchange is lower the speed limit to 65 mph. In order to have a consistent speed limit throughout the four-lane corridor, and try to lessen the severity of some of the accidents we've seen at the crossovers,” Niec said.
    
The new 65 speed limit signs should be up within a week or two. So what this prompted this reduction in speed?

Niec says they've received calls from people concerned about the inconsistency of the speed limits, and about serious crashes. A fatality crash at Route M and Highway 63 was the most recent.

“It's signed property, it's striped property, we have good sign distances in both directions, and we still had a very serious accident that occurred there. One of the ways we're trying to mitigate the severity is by just lessening the speed on 63, which will then hopefully give people more reaction time as they see cars passing by,” Niec said.
   
So, like it or not, the law says you'll be driving a little slower from Kirksville to the Boone County line. Eventually the speed limit will be reduced to 65 all the way to I -70 and into Jefferson City.

"I don't think for the most part people are gong to be that upset with it. A reduction of five miles per hour is not significant as far as the amount of time it's going to take you, say from Kirksville to Columbia and hopefully that little bit of delay will save someone's life in the future,” Niec said.

What do you think?