I-95 closure: Commuters express frustration over bridge repairs, traffic in Philly
PHILADELPHIA - A portion of I-95 North near Port Richmond is slow moving for drivers, and the reason is because of another bridge closure on 95.
"As soon as I heard it, I was like oh no, no, no," said Jim Weney, who was filling up his car with gas nearby.
PennDOT officials say at around 1:30 PM on Monday, a truck clipped the bottom of the blue railroad bridge that runs over I-95 alongside the Betsy Ross Bridge.
The damage forced crews to shut down a portion of the highway, which created a traffic nightmare.
I-95 closure: Here are some detours to help avoid traffic amid indefinite shut down
FOX 29's Bob Kelly is breaking down the best detours to get around the major I-95 closure, and get drivers to and from work as fast as possible.
"I rode past it, it was a little chaos, traffic was backed up, it was pretty crazy so, if you were in it you were mad," said Tyree Rhoades, of North Philly.
Luckily, Rhoades wasn’t in it and the same can be said for Joel Diaz, who lives right near the closure, but will be avoiding the area at all costs.
"I won’t be down there for another week until this all clears up," said Diaz.
"That will have a crazy impact because people take that route everyday so, it will just be chaos, just crazy," said Rhoades.
The closure is impacting not only drivers, but train commuters as well.
Due to the damage, the New Jersey Transit Atlantic City line is suspended between Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station and Cherry Hill Station.
Transit officials are offering bus services for impacted customers.
The big question on everyone’s mind is how long will this repair take?
"I don’t think they are going to move as fast as Cottman Ave, maybe four, five, six months, we’ll see, we’ll see what they do," says Wendy.
Diaz says, "It’s going to take them at least a week to fix it, at least a week. They say a couple of days. You can add a couple more days on top of a couple of days."