1-1           By:  Lindsay                                     S.B. No. 161

 1-2           (In the Senate - Filed December 27, 1996; January 14, 1997,

 1-3     read first time and referred to Committee on Intergovernmental

 1-4     Relations; February 13, 1997, reported favorably by the following

 1-5     vote:  Yeas 11, Nays 0; February 13, 1997, sent to printer.)

 1-6                            A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

 1-7                                   AN ACT

 1-8     relating to the authority of the commissioners courts of certain

 1-9     counties to alter speed limits on certain highways.

1-10           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

1-11           SECTION 1.  Section 545.355, Transportation Code, is amended

1-12     by adding Subsection (c) to read as follows:

1-13           (c)  The commissioners court of a county with a population of

1-14     more than 2.8 million may establish from the results of an

1-15     engineering and traffic investigation a speed limit of not more

1-16     than 70 miles per hour on any part of a highway of that county that

1-17     is a limited-access or controlled-access highway, regardless of the

1-18     location of the part of the highway.

1-19           SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the

1-20     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an

1-21     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the

1-22     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several

1-23     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,

1-24     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its

1-25     passage, and it is so enacted.

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