Biden calls fixing I-95 most ‘important project to the country right now’
President Joe Biden listens as Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro speaks at the Philadelphia International Airport in Philadelphia, Saturday, June 17, 2023, after an aerial tour of the Interstate 95 highway collapse. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Biden visited the Interstate 95 construction site in Philadelphia Saturday, saying, “There’s no more important project to the country right now, as far as I’m concerned.”
Biden was joined by Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) and Sens. John Fetterman (D-Penn.) and Bob Casey (D-Penn.).
The section of bridge along one of the country’s busiest interstates collapsed in a truck fire earlier this month, complicating traffic and threatening supply chains along the eastern seaboard.
Construction began this week on creating a new road surface by filling in what was an overpass with recycled glass landfill and paving a new road before building a parallel bridge. Biden called the construction plan an example of “innovation.”
“We will have I-95 reopened within the next two weeks,” Shapiro said. “This is our championship.”
Fetterman compared the I-95 project to a bridge that collapsed in Pittsburgh in January.
“Guess what? That bridge was rebuilt in a year well in front of time” Fetterman said.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg visited the site Tuesday, saying there is “no question” that the closed interstate will put “pressure” on supply chains. I-95 runs from Miami to the U.S.-Canada border in Maine and through most major cities on the East Coast.
“At the end of the day, there’s no substitute for I-95 being up and running in full working condition and that’s the goal that everybody’s moving towards here,” Buttigieg said.
About 160,000 vehicles cross the affected section of Interstate 95 every day, Buttigieg said.
Shapiro declared an emergency order due to the collapse and has already slated $7 million for the project.
A gasoline truck tipped over underneath the overpass section of the bridge and caught fire in early June, causing the bridge to collapse. Immense heat weakened the structure. The truck’s driver died in the incident.