Speed limits to be raised for sections of two freeways

Traffic on two freeways will speed up on Sunday as the speed limit is increased on some sections, the Taiwan Area National Freeway Bureau said yesterday.

The speed limit on National Freeway No. 1 (the Sun Yat-sen Freeway) will rise from 100kph to 110kph -- but only for the section between Miaoli County's Da-an River Bridge (大安溪橋) and the Nanzih (楠梓) Interchange in Kaohsiung County. The 200km section was constructed on plains while the rest of the freeway was built through hilly areas. In other areas the limit will remain 100kph.

The speed limit is also going up for the Hsuehshan Tunnel section of National Freeway No. 5 (Chiang Wei-shui Freeway).

The speed limit inside the tunnel has been 70kph and it will now go up to 80kph to match the rest of the freeway, except for the Toucheng (頭城) to Suao (蘇澳) section, where it is 90kph.

Motorists will still have a leeway of 10kph on the freeway, meaning that they can drive up to 90kph without being fined.

Kang Jhy-fu (康志福), acting director of the bureau's traffic management department, said yesterday's announcement had nothing to do with the presidential election. He said now was simply the optimum time to execute a policy change.

"The Hsuehshan Tunnel has been open to large buses since November and the section between Changhua County's Yuanlin (員林) and Kaohsiung was expanded to three car lanes both northbound and southbound in December," Kang said. "We just wanted the [speed increase] policy to be implemented as soon as possible."

When National Freeway No.1 opened in 1978, the speed limit was 90kph. In 2003, the government increased the speed limit for the entire freeway to 100kph.

The speed limit for National Freeway No. 5 was originally set at 70kph to give drivers the chance to get used to driving inside the freeway's many tunnels.

In other news, the bureau said it has yet to receive instructions from the government about suspending freeway toll fees on March 22, election day.