As the highway expands so do the speeds. And now that Hillsboro has 6 lanes drivers shouldn't be surprised to find another addition to the road: a 75 mile an hour speed limit.
"I was glad, it just gets me to work a little bit faster," said Ricky Dawkins.
"Everyone goes 5 miles above, so now people are going 80 instead of 75," mourned Rachel Hack.
Ken Roberts with TXDoT says the higher speeds include nearly 40 miles of highway from Abbott past the East-West split.
Studies showed that the change in limits may not bring as much of a change as you'd think.
"The 75 miles an hour is what we've determined 85 percent of our traveling public is driving right now," Roberts said.
But for some that's small comfort. Rachel says she'd worry about trucks on the road.
"They have those tires that fly off all the time and when you go 75 and they fly off it's a lot scarier."
But truck driver Cal Rios passes through the area every week. He says most truckers will probably drive much slower than the new limit.
"It takes about 500 yards to stop if you're loaded. So it's up to the driver to be safe," he said.
And folks around Hillsboro say they're not worried about people taking advantage of the higher speeds.
"Every day when I go home for lunch the cops have somebody pulled over," Ricky said with a laugh.
Its all part of the project paving the way for the entire I-35 stretch to expand to six lanes and 75 miles an hour. As construction projects finish up around Central Texas, we will see speeds increase in the entire Waco-are district.
The one place we won't see higher speeds is work zones. It's especially important to slow down around construction with the higher limits, or you risk a double fine when workers are present.
