PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Overnight closures of the Schuylkill Expressway are on tap for the next six months as PennDOT moves into the next phase of its Market Street Bridge project.
Starting Sunday, Dec. 7, PennDOT will completely close the westbound Schuylkill Expressway between 30th Street and the Vine Expressway from 10 p.m. until 5 a.m.
“And it's going to run for basically six months, through Monday, June 1. And that'll be Sundays through Thursdays,” said PennDOT spokesman Brad Rudolph.
"The interstate closure — it's inconvenient. But fortunately, you can get right off at that ramp at 30th Street, which shoots you up on Schuylkill Avenue West, and then you can decide to go onto 76 West or 676 East."
Rudolph said westbound traffic will be squeezed down to one lane for an hour before the full 10 p.m. closures. Eastbound traffic is not affected. It's all so crews can prepare to replace the superstructure over the Amtrak tracks and the Schuylkill Expressway.
"What they're going to be doing for the next six months is working underneath and doing a lot of the prep work in order to add new structural members sometime next year, probably late summer,” he said.
After that, under the $149 million project, the Market Street span over the Schuylkill River will close for 14 months as the bridge is rebuilt.
"There's a lot of work, and you're only giving the contractor and crews a certain amount of time each night. And some of that time has to be spent buttoning up and getting ready to open the highway by 5 a.m. And that is a must,” Rudolph said.