PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Six temporary lanes of I-95 are set to open to traffic on Friday, days ahead of schedule.
Gov. Josh Shapiro, Department of Transportation Secretary Mike Carroll, Mayor Jim Kenney and Philadelphia Building Trades members and contractors will officially re-open the expressway at 10:30 a.m.
The temporary section of road has six lanes, three northbound and three southbound. According to a PennDOT spokesperson, all six are expected to be open to the general public by noon, ahead of the Friday commute home.
This is an updated timeline from the promise Shapiro made earlier this week that lanes would be opened “by this weekend.”
Crews have been working around the clock for the past two weeks, since a tanker truck carrying gasoline crashed under I-95 and caught on fire, which caused a portion of the elevated highway to collapse, killing the driver.
The work has been live streamed continuously for a week now, showing crews filling the site with recycled glass before the barriers went up. Now the last step Thursday night is finishing the paving and painting the lines.
Pulling out all the stops, the transportation secretary called in a team from the Pocono Raceway. They brought in a helicopter turbine-powered jet dryer, mounted to the back of a pickup truck, which they are using to keep the new asphalt clear so lines can be painted on the roadway.
After traffic begins to flow on the expressway's temporary lanes, work will continue on the permanent structure. A timeline for that phase of construction is still unclear. Shapiro said earlier this week that PennDOT would have a better idea after the temporary section opens.
Estimates put the total cost of the project at somewhere between $25 million and $30 million — the full cost of which, Shapiro said, the federal government would cover.
Overnight travel restrictions
According to Buckley Construction, the southbound side will open first at noon. Crews will pace traffic because they have to pick up miles of cones and uncover new signs.
At 1 p.m., they will go through the same process on the northbound side. The hope is to get the entire stretch of I-95 fully open by 2.
To prepare for Friday’s opening, there will be some travel restrictions in place Thursday night through some time Friday. A few have already gone into effect.
6 p.m.: Princeton Avenue ramp to I-95 northbound will be closed until sometime Friday. Motorists will be directed to use Milnor Street to access I-95 northbound.
7 p.m.: I-95 southbound will be reduced from four lanes to one lane just past the Academy Road Interchange.
7 p.m.: The ramp from Academy Road to I-95 southbound will be closed. Detour will be posted.
7 p.m.: The ramp from Linden Avenue to I-95 southbound will be closed. Detour will be posted.
Sometime overnight, June 22-23: Southbound State Road will be reduced to a single lane between Princeton Avenue and Longshore Avenue.