Pennsylvania’s “road to hell” reopened on Friday less than two weeks after a tanker fire caused traffic misery for millions.
Joe Biden praised engineers, laborers and “many other proud union workers” for fulfilling his promise to “move heaven and earth” to reopen a busy stretch of the I-95 east coast interstate artery that had been closed since it collapsed in the incident earlier this month.
Josh Shapiro, the state’s Democratic governor, warned after the 11 June fire that repairs to the affected northbound stretch of the interstate would probably take “some number of months”.
Instead, it reopened on Friday morning, with Shapiro attending a ceremony and tweeting his own praise for the construction workers that provided what he said was “a moment of civic pride”.
“We proved we could do big things again in Pennsylvania,” Shapiro said in an enthusiastic address to those who turned up to witness the reopening.
“We all came together and we showed that when times get hard, Pennsylvanians show up for one another. And we showed that when we work together, we can get shit done.”
In a statement, Biden said he visited the worksite on Sunday.
“I grew up in Claymont, Delaware, not far from the damaged stretch of I-95. I know how important it is to people’s quality of life, the local economy, and the 150,000 vehicles that travel on it every day,” he said.
“That’s why I’m so proud of the hard-working men and women on site who put their heads down, stayed at it, and got the I-95 reopened in record time.
“Thanks to the grit and determination of operating engineers, laborers, cement finishers, carpenters, teamsters, and so many other proud union workers doing shifts around the clock, I-95 is reopening. And it’s ahead of schedule.”
The project, Biden added, was “100% federally funded”.
Closure of the highway, which was caused by a tanker colliding with a bridge, and the driver losing his life in the ensuing inferno, caused two weeks of traffic chaos in the region.
Pete Buttigieg, the transport secretary, visited the site after the incident, which he said had: “an outsized impact on commuters and on goods movement up and down the I-95 corridor”.
