Tricky HOV exit ramp getting upgraded

Beginning Thursday, Department of Transportation crews will install new pavement markers to the HOV exit ramp at I-75 and Northside Drive.

The work begins a little more than two years after a bus accident partly blamed on poor signage killed seven people at that spot.

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Elissa Eubanks /eeubanks@ajc.com

The location at I-75 and Northside Drive where a bus driver nearly mistook an HOV exit ramp for a through lane on April 2.

• Another bus makes mistake on HOV exit ramp
BLUFFTON BUS CRASH COVERAGE
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• Photos: The day's crash scene | The scene at Bluffton
• Remembering the victims | Photos

The work will begin at 9 p.m. Thursday and continue through 5 a.m. Friday, a DOT spokesman said. During that time the HOV lane from north of Howell Mill Road to Northside Drive and the I-75 HOV ramp to Northside Drive will be closed. The all-access exit ramp from I-75 to Northside Drive remains open.

Last month a tour bus carrying a high school band from Michigan to a competition in Orlando barely avoided an accident similar to the March 2007 wreck that killed five members of the Bluffton University (Ohio) baseball team ramp, the driver and his wife.

The Michigan driver, Rick Obertein, said he thought the ramp was a continuation of I-75’s southbound HOV lane,

Last July, the National Transportation Safety Board blamed the tragedy on bad signs and driver error. NTSB Chairman Mark V. Rosenker called it a “terrible and tragic accident … that didn’t have to happen.”

DOT Crews will also be installing new striping and pavement interstate shields to the HOV lane and the ramp.