Governor Josh Shapiro announced on Tuesday that crews have made significant progress constructing I-95’s temporary fix, and that the highway will be reopened as early as this weekend.
Shapiro was unable to specify which day the reopening would take place, but seemed confident in his assessment, which he announced on Facebook:
Based on the tremendous progress these crews made over the weekend, I can now say:
We will have I-95 back open this weekend.
We have worked around the clock to get this done, and we’ve completed each phase safely and ahead of schedule.
Our significant progress is all due to the incredible coordination with our local, state, and federal partners — and thanks to the hard-working men and women of the Philadelphia Building Trades who are making this happen.
The plan involves 2,000 tons of lightweight glass nuggets to fill in the collapsed area and a forthcoming replacement bridge which will reroute traffic while crews excavate the filled in area to restore the exit ramp.
After initially saying that it would take months to rebuild, Governor Josh Shapiro announced on June 17 that I-95 will open within the next two weeks.