Offramp where teens died to be upgraded

WYOMING, Mich. (WOOD) - The I-196 interchange where two Wyoming Park High School teens died in May will be upgraded with high visibility materials and larger signs.

Beginning Monday, MDOT will close the ramps to replace all the signs on both the eastbound I-196 off ramp and westbound I-196 on ramp at Chicago Drive. The new signs will be more visible and an extra 25 mph loop ramp sign will be added. More delineators -- that is, posts with reflectors -- will be added.

The work will last about five days and is weather dependent, an MDOT official said. Authorities said the improvements aren't a direct result of the crash but is rather a periodic review of ramps.

Krysta Howell and Timothy See died when the car they were in left the off ramp in the early morning hours of May 20. Howell was 15 and See was 17.

Haley Altman, a 16-year-old senior at Wyoming Park High School, began a petition drive to get a guardrail installed along the curve where her friends died. It's on the off-ramp from eastbound I-196 to Chicago Drive.

The car left that ramp and rolled down a hill before crashing into a tree.

Classmate Takunda Mavima was driving that night. In August he pleaded guilty to two counts of operating while intoxicated causing death and to an amended count of OWI causing injury.

The 18-year-old was sentenced to 30 months in prison.