95 Reopened; Cracked Pillar Enshrined

Well, well! After two days of drivers plowing through potholes on Richmond Street, 95 in Port Richmond is now re-opened. Although PennDOT pinky swore it would re-open Wednesday night, it actually reopened early this morning.

KYW 1060 reports, “KYW’s John McDevitt reports workers made significant progress since Tuesday.” I hope so, since they closed down a major highway for two days. Ooh, significant progress. Good job, guys! Still, the closing only lasted four rush hours; this is clearly an actual quick bang-up job by a state agency, and frankly I’m a little scared the end of the world might be soon because of it.

Anyway, apparently the problem is highway salt, and it’s going to cost billions to completely overhaul I-95 over the next couple years. Ooh, boy, I can’t wait!

95 Reopens [KYW 1060]
[Photo of cracked pillar by Brad Maule]

I-95 Still Closed, To Reopen Tonight

Today’s second rush hour A.C. I-95 (after closing of I-95) is going rather smoothly, according to the radio. Rather smoothly, of course, means that Richmond Street has not devoured several cars in a giant potholes and Aramingo Avenue is not the exact location of Hell.

Officials say the stretch of the Delaware Expressway — oddly enough, we only refer to one of our interstate highways that runs parallel to a river by its name, and it’s not this one despite its technical name — between Aramingo and Girard will reopen after rush hour tonight after the giant crap crack in a support beam (pictured) is repaired.

This is the first shutdown of 95 since The Great 95 Tire Fire of 1996, which was just such a great time we all decided to do it again 12 years later. The highway shut down for a week back then, so this week’s two-day shutdown is just a big of mini-nostalgia.

As appears to be customary with every single news event in Philadelphia nowadays, Brian Hickey has issued a press release detailing how John Dougherty would prevent I-95 shutdowns as state senator. I didn’t read it, but I can only assume it means Johnny Doc would get a bunch of union members to hold up the highway themselves. Which, frankly, is just as good as Anne Dicker’s plan of preventing the casinos from opening and using unused poker chips to hold up the highway.

I-95 to reopen tonight [Inquirer]