More Freeways to Get 65-MPH Speed Limits

Caltrans is raising the speed limit to 65 mph on stretches of five more freeways, and Los Angeles County will get its first roadway where 70 mph is legal--even if it’s only 8 1/2 miles in the Antelope Valley.

The 65-mph speed limit will become effective on the following freeways as soon as workers install the new signs, expected to be completed by next week:

* Santa Ana Freeway from just north of the San Gabriel River Freeway to the Orange County line.

* Artesia Freeway from the Harbor Freeway to the Orange County line.

* Ventura Freeway from the Hollywood Freeway to Woodland Hills.

* Hollywood Freeway from the Ventura Freeway to the Golden State Freeway.

* San Diego Freeway from Sunset Boulevard to just north of the Harbor Freeway.

Caltrans officials said that the speed limit will remain at 55 mph on the Harbor Freeway from San Pedro to the Santa Monica Freeway and on the San Diego Freeway from Normandie Avenue to the Orange County line until construction is completed. Then it will be raised to 65 mph.

The new speed limits now put most of the county’s vast freeway system at 65 mph, except around congested downtown.

Winning the distinction of the county’s only roadway with a 70-mph speed limit is a wide-open stretch of the Antelope Valley Freeway from Avenue I to the Kern County line.

But a CHP officer doesn’t think the new speed limit would make much difference in the High Desert--except perhaps in how much speeders are fined when caught.

“I’m doing 70 mph, and they’re passing me,” said the officer, who declined to give his name.

The speed limit was raised to 65 mph on much of Los Angeles County’s web of freeways last December, after Congress lifted the 55 mph national speed limit imposed in 1973 during the Arab oil embargo.

A decision was put off until Thursday on some other freeways because Caltrans and the California Highway Patrol wanted to conduct further engineering studies.

“We wanted to make a thorough engineering evaluation prior to raising it to 65,” said Frank Quon, division chief of operations in Caltrans’ Los Angeles office.

The speed limit will remain 55 mph on the region’s oldest freeways, the Pasadena and the Hollywood between downtown Los Angeles and the Ventura Freeway. It also will remain 55 mph on the short Marina Freeway.

Times staff writer Ealena Callender contributed to this story.