Highways
Pennsylvania Governor Says I-95 Will Reopen Within Two Weeks
Work has continued 24/7 to reopen the heavily traveled I-95 section in Philadelphia closed since a tanker truck accident June 11.
Photo courtesy of Pennsylvania Dept. of Transportation
The section of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia that has been closed since a June 11 tanker truck fire destroyed a bridge will reopen within two weeks, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said June 17.
President Joe Biden reiterated his administration’s pledge to fund the rebuild during a visit to the area. The Federal Highway Administration has already provided $3 million in quick-release emergency relief program funds to supplement $7 million Shapiro set in an emergency declaration, and Biden said the federal government would reimburse Pennsylvania for 100% of the costs in the first phase of work, and for 90% beyond that.
Officials have not yet released an estimated cost for the project.
“It’s critical to our economy and it’s critical to our quality of life,” Biden said. “We’re going to continue to do everything we can within our power to get this back open as quickly and easily as possible.”
The fire, fueled by a commercial tanker that crashed on the road under the I-95 bridge in northeast Philadelphia while carrying a petroleum-based product, caused the northbound side of the 104-ft-long welded steel I-beam bridge to collapse and left the southbound side structurally unstable, state officials previously said. They confirmed that driver Nathan Moody was killed.
An emergency project to reopen the highway and rebuild the bridge is currently underway by local contractor Buckley & Co. Inc. under an open-ended contract with the Pennsylvania Dept. of Transportation. The plan is to fill the center of the crossing with recycled foamed glass aggregate and build a temporary road surface on that, then rebuild the bridge while keeping six lanes open. Once the new bridge is built, crews will remove the temporary road and aggregate.
Crews have been working around the clock, and Shapiro said demolition of the old bridge by Sewell, N.J.-based C. Abbonizio Contractors Inc. was completed in four days.
“We are going to get traffic moving again thanks to the extraordinary work of those here and our incredible union trade workers,” Shapiro said.
While the governor said the highway would reopen in two weeks, he did not say how long the total project is expected to take.
The destroyed bridge, which records show was completed in 2016 as part of PennDOT’s “95 Revive” project, had an average daily traffic level of nearly 160,000 vehicles, about 8% of which were trucks.
