The Governor of Pennsylvania declined to provide a reopening timeline for Interstate 95 during his announcement of a temporary repair plan on Wednesday.
Governor Josh Shapiro announced on Wednesday, June 14th that Pennsylvania will soon truck in 2,000 tons of glass nuggets as filler for the collapsed roadway. The affected portion of roadway is approximately 100-feet long and 150 feet wide, reported AP News.
The recycled glass will be used to fill in the collapsed portion of the highway by piling the material in the underpass area until it reaches I-95 and then paving over it. This temporary fix will allow for three lanes of traffic to open in each direction while crews build a bridge next to the area. That bridge will then be used to reroute traffic while crews complete a more permanent fix for the interstate.
“This approach will allow us to avoid delays due to shipping and supply chain issues and pursue a simple, quicker path,” Shapiro said. Shapiro would not provide an estimated date for the return of traffic flow in the area, but did respond that crews are “going to get this job done as quickly as possible.”
Demolition of the destroyed north and southbound lanes is expected to be completed on Thursday, June 15th, and delivery of the glass material could begin the same day. The glass material will be supplied by AeroAggregates of North America, a company just south of Philadelphia, and is made from glass bottles and jars bound for landfills. The glass containers are then ground into a powder and heated into a foam, which then turns into lightweight, gray nuggets that look like rocks but are incredibly light. Each nugget is about an inch wide.
The project is estimated to require about 100 truckloads, or 10,000 cubic yards, of the material. It is approved for use by 23 state transportation departments in the United States.