West Expressway

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Since the right lane ends, on the ramp carrying I-77 Southbound through the Central Interchange, (see Oh 8 page for the short story on the Central Interchange) as soon as it leaves I-76 Eastbound, a red "X" is used instead of a down arrow.

Notable features: I-76 is listed after I-77, probably because I-76 used to be called I-80S here. It was thought at first that the letters in "Ledges Bl" were narrower than the rest because "Ledges Bl" was covering up the word "Ledges", but Thomas Fritsch of the Akron Metropolitan Area Transportation Study metropolitan planning organization states that it "actually cover[s] over 'Washington St' the name of Wolf Ledges Parkway [in fact 'Parkway', not 'Boulevard'] when the West Leg was built." The gore exit sign is of an unusual design. More of Akron's unique traffic signals are visible at the end of the exit ramp. And the sign in the background for some of Akron's attractions (the Convention Center; Inventure Place; and Canal Park Stadium, home of the minor-league baseball team the Akron Aeros, AA farm team of the Cleveland Indians) is green with a brown overlay, rather than brown. Matt "JVincent" Steffora formerly had a photo of this gantry on his now-defunct general-highways webpage.

Ramp crossing - a special warning sign is needed due to the crossing of the entrance ramp from Grant Street/Wolf Ledges Boulevard (see above) to I-76 WB/I-77 NB at the same point where the exit ramp to Main Street/High Street branches from I-76/77.

This is used to indicate that the right lane of a two-lane on-ramp (in this case, the south end of Ohio 59, which at this point is "the Martin Luther King Jr Freeway" a.k.a. "the Akron Innerbelt") continues and the left lane merges with the right lane of the through highway (I-76 Westbound/I-77 Northbound). Ohio 59 Southbound also has the same type of sign here, oriented appropriately. When this situation arises in Metro Cleveland, a merge sign with two "tails" is used.

This added-lane sign shows the path of the leftmost lane in addition to the paths of the other lanes. For comparison, here is a rendering of a standard version of this sign (courtesy Richard C. Moeur's Manual of Traffic Signs). Below the sign are two of many black-and-white hazard markers found around Akron.
At the convergence of I-77 Southbound and I-76 Eastbound

The I-76/I-80 Corridor Study by ODOT District 4

Questions and comments can be directed to Sandor Gulyas or Marc Fannin (alternate)

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