Matt Rourke/AP Photo
The scene where an elevated section of Interstate 95 collapsed in Philadelphia, June 12, 2023
The response to the crash and fire that led to the rebuild of a Philadelphia stretch of Interstate 95 has been a master class in emergency management, public messaging, and the miracles that 2,000 tons of recycled foam glass aggregate can accomplish.
The city lucked out with high-profile political support, minus the finger-pointing that can bog down recovery efforts. That the major players had roots in the Philadelphia area no doubt helped the dollars flow faster and smoothed out the boss-wants-this-done-yesterday coordination between federal and state officials. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D), who grew up in suburban Montgomery County (and whose wife Lori is from Bucks County, the part of the metro area most cut off by the I-95 closure) signed a disaster declaration shortly after the crash, unleashing $7 million in state and $3 million in federal funds. Already scheduled to be in Philadelphia to headline a union rally, President Biden, a Scranton native and longtime resident of Delaware, took a helicopter survey of the crash site. (First lady Jill Biden is a “Philly girl,” as Biden sometimes calls her.) Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and infrastructure czar Mitch Landrieu also put in some face time. The fact that the Philadelphia suburbs are the most crucial swing counties in one of the most crucial swing states in a presidential election probably didn’t hurt.
Ironically, in January 2022, Biden was in Pennsylvania to promote the bipartisan infrastructure agreement when another calamity occurred when Pittsburgh’s Fern Hollow Bridge collapsed into a ravine about 100 feet below the span. That larger reconstruction project, which took less than a year, also impressed the experts. The American Society of Civil Engineers called the Pittsburgh rebuild “a feat of fast-paced coordination, engineering, and construction that radically reduced the usual time frame for similar projects.”
The Philadelphia repairs were comparatively straightforward compared to the Pittsburgh rebuild. The short-term goal was to get a temporary deck in place after the crash on the Cottman Avenue exit ramp, which ignited thousands of gallons of gasoline and killed truck driver Nathan Moody. The construction involved paving over the aggregate material. Members of the Philadelphia Building Trades, an umbrella organization for 50 unions in the construction industry, worked 24/7 in 12-hour shifts to get the six temporary lanes open in 12 days. All of this led Shapiro to take his now-iconic “We work together—and we get sh*t done” victory lap on Twitter. The former state attorney general’s first major success after just six months as governor dropped so many jaws that he gained even more notice as presidential material.
In a corridor that sees about 160,000 vehicles a day, local prophets of doom forecast mayhem, but Carmageddon did not materialize. Public officials pleaded with employers to let those workers who could work from home. Everyone else had multiple local road options, and drivers transiting the region could opt for the New Jersey Turnpike. The public messaging systems set up “pretty much instantly” by the Pennsylvania and New Jersey departments of transportation were “very impressive,” says Lisa Miller of the Eastern Transportation Coalition, a partnership of 17 states and the District of Columbia, who notes that it typically takes 12 to 24 hours for relevant officials to coordinate strategies that are especially critical for drivers like truckers in a key corridor for interstate commerce.
One lesson learned is to have greater trust in new technologies that can be more durable, less expensive, and quicker to assemble.
The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) stepped up its service on three commuter rail lines and plans to maintain the extra trains for the moment. The authority also added extra workers to boost subway and bus services. While the work-from-home era has strained public transit systems’ people and fiscal resources, overall, SEPTA has recovered roughly 60 percent of its pre-pandemic ridership, and the system saw a 16 percent week-over-week increase in ridership on the commuter rail lines in the affected area. The question, perhaps, is whether SEPTA made any permanent converts, especially since vehicle travel has now recovered as the pandemic winds down.
“There’s a pretty long history of these types of shutdowns, whether they’re planned for a big repair or unexpected from a fire, an earthquake, or a bad crash, the one thing that is pretty consistent is that the effects are less pronounced than the chaos that people expect,” says Erick Guerra, an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Weitzman School of Design. “Even on a really important segment like that in a large city, there is just a lot of room for people to change their behavior to avoid it.”
For the engineering world, there are important takeaways. One lesson learned is to have greater trust in new technologies that can be more durable, less expensive, and quicker to assemble. “Lightweight aggregate materials are just one example of how you can implement new technology and at the same time be green and sustainable,” says Mehdi Khanzadeh Moradllo, a Temple University civil and environmental engineering assistant professor.
For certain larger bridge projects, accelerated bridge construction is a possibility. Workers can build major sections off-site and install them in a few days or weeks, and materials like ultra-high-performance concrete, which is many times stronger than typical concrete and sets in a few hours, can be utilized. Another lesson, according to Moradllo, is that public officials should move to factor in climate change and other resilience considerations as they come up with new transportation maintenance strategies and guidelines for infrastructure assets like I-95. He noted, for example, that the steel beams underneath the highway were not protected against fire and that some type of fireproofing would likely be in order.
But setting aside all the chest-thumping, what does the rebuild of a short but strategic link on the country’s longest north-south highway tell us about constructing new highway projects?
Not much.
The state emergency declaration for Philadelphia cleared the way for decisions and construction that can take months, if not years, for conventionally planned projects. Pennsylvania highway officials did not have to get planning documents or environmental permits. The fire only affected the upper sections of the highway in a major urban area rather than rural stretches. No pilings or other structures had to be removed, and there was no new drilling that had to be done for supports or reconfiguring to add more lanes. The need for speed, getting money, materials, equipment, and people to work around the clock, simply doesn’t factor into the vast majority of American highway construction projects. The I-95 reconstruction had the urgency of an emergency.
