AASHTO Journal - PennDOT Celebrates Permanent Fixes to I-95 Damage

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and Federal Highway Administration recently hosted a ceremony highlighting the completion of permanent repairs – in less than a year – to portions of Interstate 95 in northeast Philadelphia that collapsed in June 2023 following a tanker truck crash and fire.

[Above photo by PennDOT]

In consultation with FHWA engineers, PennDOT hired a contractor – Philadelphia-based Buckley & Company – that backfilled the gap in the roadway created by the collapsed bridge and paved it over to create a temporary roadway in just 12 days – a fix that allowed the all six lanes of the highway to be used while more permanent repairs were made.

FHWA also issued PennDOT $3 million in “quick release” Emergency Relief funds to support highway traffic “mitigation efforts” around the collapsed bridge site following the collapse; the demolition of the damaged structure; and the emergency repairs necessary to restore the roadway’s ability to handle its traffic volumes of 160,000 vehicles per day.

Now a new bridge and ramp stand in place of the ones destroyed by the crash and fire in June 2023, noted PennDOT Secretary Mike Carroll at the event.

“Today serves as another example to all that Pennsylvania can do big things,” he explained in a statement. “Thanks to the dedication of the workers and incredible coordination between the [Governor] Shapiro Administration, our federal partners, and the City of Philadelphia, traffic flowed freely on I-95 throughout construction and we were able to restore the roadway to full capacity less than a year after the tragic fire and collapse.”

When both lanes of the northbound ramp to Cottman Avenue are complete, it will feature enhanced traffic safety measures such as new signage and High Friction Surface Treatment or HFST; a treatment to the top of a road surfaces that creates more friction on the pavement, helping keep vehicles in their lane and improving stopping distance around curves or other locations where wet pavement may contribute to crashes.

PennDOT also used its I-95 rebuild effort as part of its 2023-2024 workforce recruitment campaign with a billboard in Philadelphia off I-95 that reads: “Fixed this jawn. Join the team.”

(For those unfamiliar with eastern Pennsylvania terminology, “jawn” means “a thing, place, person, or event that one need not or cannot give a specific name to.”)

To continue to “get stuff done,” PennDOT said it is recruiting for team members statewide to help with 40,000 state-maintained roadway miles and 25,400 state-maintained bridges.

“Across Pennsylvania, the team at PennDOT is hard at work fixing our roads, highways and bridges,” PennDOT’s Carroll noted.

“We have improved and repaired nearly 3,100 miles of state-owned roads and completed 161 bridge projects, supporting thousands of jobs across the Commonwealth,” he said. “We look forward to adding more members to a team that is showing the nation what Pennsylvania is capable of.”