Province hints that speed limits on 400 series highways could increase

The Ontario government is hinting that speed limits on provincial highways could be changing.

While the details are scarce, Transportation Minister Jeff Yurek suggested that the Progressive Conservative government is looking at increasing speeds on 400 series highways.

Currently, the speed limit is 100 km/h.

The rate of speed on series 400 highways is controlled and managed by the Ministry of Transportation.

Yurek made the comments while speaking at the Toronto Region Board of Trade on Wednesday.

He said more information will be made available next week, noting that anyone who uses the major provincial highways will be interested in the province’s announcement.

Yurek went on suggest that the province has heard criticism from drivers that speed limits are outdated and need to be revised.

He said the province will be doing public consultations on the possible increase and launch a pilot project, however it’s not clear how that would play out.

“If you look back on the history of why speed limits were set where they were back in the 70s, there was an energy crisis, (and) in order to conserve fuel they lowered the speed limits on our highway system. It stayed that way ever since,” Yurek said.

“I’ve heard lots of stakeholders mention that maybe it’s time to take a review of how our speed limits are in the province and we’ll’ have more to say next week on this issue, but moving forward with consultations.”

Ontario Provincial Police Sgt. Kerry Schmidt expressed concerns about the possibility.

“High rate of speed collisions result in injuries and death. The higher the speed people are travelling, the more likely they are to be injured and the more likely they are to be killed,” he told CTV News Toronto.

“I can tell you right now that aggressive driving and speeding related collisions are the number one killer on provincial roads.”