Anyone who’s taken the East 9th Street entrance ramp onto the Innerbelt Bridge heading on I-71 South/I-90 West has probably noticed a minor clusterfuck that resulted from the bridge’s original lane plans. The East 9th ramp’s lane traversed a long stretch of the bridge, separated from the other lanes by a wide swath, and then abruptly merged with little to no warning.
During rush hour this has led to a reliable, maddening and dangerous bottleneck as drivers in the furthest most right lane fail to yield to merging traffic because it looks like a dedicated lane, while merging traffic, half the time unaware that it is merging, slams on breaks and anxiously tries to get over before the ramp ends. Even during non-peak hours, confusion and last-second swerves abounded.
Well, you’ll be happy to know ODOT fixed the issue this week. The East 9th and Ontario ramps were closed Wednesday night. Drivers awoke Thursday morning to find the East 9th ramp no longer ended in a merge but a dedicated lane. Thank Jebus.
This article appears in May 17-23, 2017.
I’m glad they fixed it, but the eastbound entrance from W. 14th Street in Tremont has the same problem. I use it five days a week and it’s a catastrophic accident waiting to happen.
ODOT is seemingly full of idiots who have never merged a car on to a highway.
What’s really ‘annoying’ is attempting to cross two public 25 MPH city streets, E9th, Ontario that ODOT transformed into freeway on-ramps as a pedestrian or cyclist while freedom loving car slaves violently jockey for position.
That hasn’t been addressed at all.
I’d like to see the northbound ramp from 490 to 71N (coming from E. 55th
) finally open. I waste more time,gas & mileage having to drive out to W.7th and getting off and back onto 490 so I can go North on 71. This is my daily commute.
— Freeway Jam —