PHILADELPHIA — Gov. Josh Shapiro said Saturday the collapsed section of I-95 in Philadelphia will be reopened within two weeks, unveiling an aggressive timeline to get traffic flowing again through the busy East Coast thoroughfare.
“I can state with confidence that we will have I-95 reopened within the next two weeks,” Shapiro said during a news conference in a Philadelphia airport hangar, after he took a helicopter tour of the I-95 collapse site in Northeast Philadelphia with President Joe Biden and other elected officials.
“We are going to get traffic moving again thanks to the extraordinary work that is going on here by these union trade workers,” Shapiro said. He again called the project “our championship.”
The announcement came six days after an elevated portion of I-95 collapsed due to a tanker truck fire underneath. The truck driver died in the fire, and the highway collapse disrupted traffic in and around the city, causing headaches and added costs for commuters and business owners. The reopened highway will be built on top of recycled glass fill and will serve as a temporary structure while work continues on a permanent bridge replacement. Officials haven’t set a timeline for completing a permanent bridge and reopening the exits at Cottman Avenue.
Biden said the federal government will pay for the emergency work to reopen the highway. The cost of repairs will be covered 100% over the first 200 days and then 90% after that, Biden said. Standing in front of signs that said “Joe Biden Rebuilding I-95,” Biden said the bridge rebuild is the most important infrastructure project in the country — it tops a list of 32,000 projects that have been approved for funding under the infrastructure bill.
“It’s critical. It’s critical to our economy, it’s critical to our quality of life. We’re going to continue to do everything we can within our power to get this back open as quickly, as easily, as possible,” Biden said.
For Biden, who added the I-95 tour to his visit to Philadelphia Saturday for a reelection rally with union workers later in the day, the bridge repair complemented the cornerstone legislation of his administration — rebuilding aging infrastructure. It also fit with the emphasis he’s put on supporting union workers.
U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle, who is from Northeast Philadelphia, said the reopened I-95 will have three lanes in each direction instead of four, as was expected. It’s a temporary fix as a more permanent structure is built around it.
The exits near the collapse will remain closed with the temporary fix, but Boyle noted having traffic moving again on I-95 will be a huge improvement to ease congestion in the Northeast.
”The bottom line is for the hundreds of thousands of us who take that every day, we will be able to travel again on 95 within the next few weeks. It’ll make a huge difference.”
U.S. Sen. John Fetterman recalled the bridge collapse in Pittsburgh last year, when he met the president there on a snowy day.
“Guess what? That bridge was rebuilt in a year — well, well in front of time,” Fetterman said.
U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, Boyle and Mayor Jim Kenney also joined Biden at the press conference.
Kenney said he’d been ignoring calls from a 202 number last week until a staff member told him to “please answer, it’s the president.” He credited Biden’s communication with the city, to which Biden said he’d be sleeping alone had he not reached out. “I married a Philly girl,” he said, referencing first lady Jill Biden’s Philadelphia roots.
Biden also joined Shapiro and officials on a small “tour” around the airport hangar at Atlantic Aviation, where he was shown an example of the recycled glass fill being used for the emergency repairs. Shapiro showed off the livestream of the rebuild site playing on a flat screen TV in the hangar.
“They’re watching it at Philly sports bars all the time,” Shapiro told Biden.
Biden inspected I-95 reconstruction by air rather than on the ground to allow workers to continue their important repairs without interruption, according to Ryan Boyer, leader of the Philadelphia Building Trades Council.
“Even the president won’t stop this work,” Boyer said ahead of his visit Saturday morning. “He’s going to inspect the work from a different vantage point but not go there. We really prioritize the work over everything.”
One of the workers came to meet the president on Saturday after getting off an overnight shift at 6 a.m.
“The president normally would come in and visit the site and shut it down for a couple of hours,” Boyer said. “But every minute of the day we’ll be working.”
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(Staff writer Rita Giordano contributed to this article.)
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