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Traffic's flowing again between Girard and the Betsy Ross Bridge -
the two-mile stretch of I-95 that was shut down since Monday
for emergency construction
The section of I-95 that has been closed in both directions since Monday night reopened Thursday morning.
PennDOT reopened northbound lanes between Girard and the Betsy Roos Bridge around 6:20am; southbound I-95 reopened shortly after.
KYW's Matt Leon reports PennDOT's Gene Blaum says the delay was due to the addition of safety measures - eight steel plates called stiffeners to help provide more support by the damaged pillar. Blaum talked about the delay:
“While this work has been going on, engineers with the department have been continuing to analyze the design and review the calculations and determined that additional support would be necessary in those particular areas and that’s a measure that we want to take to ensure the safety.”
PennDOT planned a stress test on the repaired section of roadway with maintenance trucks early Thursday morning.
KYW's John McDevitt reports workers made significant progress since Tuesday, when materials for support towers were trucked in. Crews have been working around the clock to get the temporary stabilizers in place.
A two-mile stretch of the highway in Philadelphia between Girard and Aramingo was shut down in both directions since early Tuesday, backing up commuter traffic for miles, as emergency repairs were being made on a crack in a concrete support pillar beneath the major northeast corridor.
KYW's John Ostapkovich reports a corrosion engineer says highway salt is the reason for the I-95 bridge problem, but bureaucracy is why it got to this point.
William Schutt, president of MATCOR, Inc. of Doylestown, says the I-95 bridge support problem never should have gotten this severe. There should have been intervention when a small problem was discovered last year because corrosion accelerates.
He says government at all levels has been crossing its figurative fingers for decades, in part because the fix is astronomically expensive:
"The Civil Engineering Society estimates, to fix the nation's bridges, to bring them back up to code and make them all whole, $1.6 trillion, that's today. So we had best get on with it."
Schutt also knocks PennDOT for relying on visual inspection to catch the problem. There are diagnostic devices to catch it early, and Schutt says once the corrosion reaches the surface, it's real severe.
Pennsylvania's transportation secretary says the I-95 problem is only the most urgent of many.
PennDOT Secretary Allen Biehler says Pennsylvania has about 5,900 deficient bridges border to border but I-95 is the most heavily traveled highway with the most elevated sections.
This repair took a few days but it's a much longer horizon for the big picture:
"As we look out, not over the next year, but over the next 10 years because the traffic loads on I-95 are so terrific we've got to have a comprehensive traffic maintenance plan. Part of the question is going to be, you know, what is the overall price tag? And I'm not sure what that is, but it's in the billions of dollars. I mean it's that serious."
Biehler says repairs have to be section by section because of the years-long commuter nightmare a larger shutdown would create, and because there's simply not that much money available at once anyway.
KYW's Mark Abrams reports construction crews were working around the clock to make repairs to the crack in the concrete support column under a key bridge on I-95 over Richmond Street in Philadelphia.
The discovery prompted authorities to close a two-mile stretch of the highway in both directions.
PennDOT District Executive Les Toaso says crews are going to be placing four steel support towers to hold up the center section of the bridge where the concrete support column developed a large crack:
“We expect, at a minimum the close down to be at least two days, that’s what we’re shooting for. Four months ago, in October when we saw it, it was only a half an inch wide, the crack, and about four and a half foot long. So, it’s about two inches wide now and seven or eight foot long.”
He says a bridge inspector discovered during a routine check Monday that the crack had expanded dramatically.
The decision was made to shut down the roadway shortly after midnight Tuesday.
Toaso says the weather is the likely culprit:
“If water gets in those cracks and you get ice in the cracks -- and what it does is it expands the concrete and that’s what we think happened right here.”
KYW's Mike Dunn reports Mayor Michael Nutter is urging drivers to be patient as I-95 is repaired -- as the road will not be re-opened until its safety is assured.
Nutter says as inconvenient as this is, it could have been disastrous had the problem gone unnoticed:
"For all of our citizens, and people traveling through Philadelphia, of course this is an inconvenience. But my god, can you imagine not catching something like this? It certainly could have been tremendously tragic."
Nutter says the road repair will not be rushed:
"I want to remind everyone here that the primary issue at hand is making sure that the roadway is safe, first and foremost, and then back into service as quickly as possible. We will not jeopardize safety in order to return the road to service quickly."
KYW's Hadas Kuznits reports it's been slow going for detoured motorists.
(Motorists): "Traffic is just stuck." “It’s a mess."
(Kuznits): In fact, traffic was so slow on the detour route I was able to get out of my car and talk to the drivers.
(Motorist): "We’re trying to take it in a good way so we’re just trying to relax."
(Kuznits): "How long do you think it will take you to get home?"
(Motorist): "It’s going to be about another two hours probably – for a route that usually takes about 10 to 15 minutes."
