The collapsed section of Interstate 95 is set to reopen in two weeks, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro told reporters on Saturday.
Shapiro made the announcement at a news conference following a helicopter tour of the collapse site with President Joe Biden.
“I can now talk a little bit more about the progress that we’re making,” Shapiro said. “We will have I-95 reopened within the next two weeks. We are going to get traffic moving again, thanks to the extraordinary work that is going on here by these union trades workers.”
Biden, who was joined at the site by Gov. Shapiro, Mayor Jim Kenney, Sens. Bob Casey and John Fetterman, Rep. Brendan Boyle, and other officials, said reopening the collapsed roadway was the country’s biggest priority.
“I told the governor there is no more important project right now in the country as far as I’m concerned,” Biden said. “I’m directing my team to literally move heaven and earth to get it done as soon as humanly possible.”
Biden promised more federal funding for the project in the coming weeks, noting that Pennsylvania has already received $8.9 billion from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Earlier this month, a section of Interstate 95 collapsed after a tanker truck carrying 8,500 gallons of gasoline crashed underneath it and caught fire, authorities said.
Police said the driver lost control of the truck as he was trying to drive around the curve of an exit ramp from the northbound side of the interstate. The truck tipped over and landed on its side, “igniting the fire,” Pennsylvania Secretary of Transportation Mike Carroll said at a briefing the day after the collapse.
The heat from the fire weakened the I-beams supporting the overpass, causing it to collapse, Carroll said.
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