PHILADELPHIA -- The reconstruction of the collapsed portion of 95 will be completed “as quickly as possible,” Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said Wednesday.
Shapiro avoided giving a definitive timeline of the reconstruction of the collapsed portion of I-95 in Northeast Philadelphia Wednesday, repeating instead several times that the job would be completed “as quickly as possible.”
“We realize this is a challenge for motorists,” Shapiro said. “That’s why these guys are working their tails off to get it done as quickly as possible.”
Once demolition of the damaged portion of the highway is completed, Shapiro said, crews will backfill the demolished area with Pennsylvania-made recycled glass aggregate. The Pennsylvania State Police will escort trucks carrying the fill from Delaware County to Philadelphia in order to ensure the material makes it to the site “as quickly as possible.”
PennDot has hired a Philadelphia firm, Buckley & Co., to rebuild the roadway. That company was similarly hired in 1996 to rebuild a section of 95 that was badly damaged in a tire fire in the city’s Port Richmond section.
Once the backfill is added to the roadway, crews will pave the surface level of 95, and three center lanes in each direction will be open to motorists. The area outside those lanes will have new lanes built on it PennDot Secretary of Transportation Mike Carroll said.
“Once those are completed, we will transition the traffic to the completed new structure, excavate the material that constitutes the fill, use that in another project, and complete the reconstruction of the center part of the bridge,” Carroll said.
After the center portion is completed, officials will reopen the Cottman Ave. exit ramp, and work will be completed. Authorities have said the work is expected to take months to complete.
