In a development that may be shockingly excellent news for the trucking industry, Pennsylvania’s governor says Interstate 95 in northeast Philadelphia will reopen in two weeks.
Two weeks from the Saturday announcement would put the reopening at at some point lower than three weeks since last Sunday’s collapse of a bit of the highway attributable to the fiery crash of a tanker truck beneath it. The hearth and explosion took place in a bit of town referred to as Tacony.
When the collapse occurred, the web speculation was whether Pennsylvania could beat the 43 days that it took Georgia to reconstruct an overpass that was damaged by fire in 2017. Based on an article from Axios, there was skepticism that the Georgia performance might be topped and fear that the repairs in Philadelphia could take months, creating major disruption to business and other traffic.
Provided that, Shapiro’s statement got here as as a surprise. “I can state with confidence that we are going to have I-95 reopened inside the following two weeks,” he said Saturday at a briefing with President Joe Biden at Philadelphia’s primary airport, in response to a prepared statement released by his office. “We’re going to get traffic moving again due to the extraordinary work of those here and our incredible union trade employees.”
The statement put out by Shapiro’s office had several details in regards to the pace of the reconstruction.
Shapiro earlier had disclosed that demolition of the bridge and roadway had taken 4 days. That was “ahead of schedule and beating some experts’ prediction of greater than every week,” the statement said.
Laying down a base within the roadway with a foamed glass aggregate fill began Thursday, after the demolition was complete. “That very same day, the Pennsylvania State Police escorted truckloads of foamed glass aggregate fill from AeroAggregates in Delaware County up I-95 to the development site to ensure they arrived as quickly as possible,” the statement said. “Members of the Philadelphia Constructing Trades, working for Philadelphia-based contractor Buckley & Company, have begun pouring the foamed glass aggregate into the gap within the roadway, constructing it as much as the surface level of I-95.”
Work will proceed “24/7” through the vacation weekend, in response to the statement.
An earlier FreightWaves article on the status of disruptions to trucking created by the closure will be found here.
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