I-95 Collapse in Philadelphia Sends Commuters Searching for Alternatives

A day after an elevated portion of Interstate 95 collapsed in northeast Philadelphia, buckling after a tanker truck caught fire, the weekday rush hour began Monday with dread and preparation. There were predictable snags, hinting at the summer of disruption and discontent that lies ahead: Commuter trains were delayed, highway on- and offramps were clogged, neighborhood streets around the area were a mess and commute times were growing.

“It’s looking like more than an hour on a typical 40-minute commute,” said John Heinrich, an electrician in northeast Philadelphia, who usually takes I-95 to get to his job site across the city.

Yet some found the drive into work Monday morning to be less of a traffic nightmare than they feared, with only moderate delays, or in some cases no delay at all.

Some people may have opted to work from home, or came up with well-executed backup plans. Or perhaps the official response — adding extra cars to commuter trains, arranging detours, offering free parking at some mass transit lots — turned out to be relatively effective.

“We all have very little faith in our city officials, because we pay a lot of taxes and they don’t tend to do very much,” said Sara Goldrick-Rab, 46, who lives a few minutes away from where the collapse took place. “But in this case, at least so far, it looks like they are mobilizing very fast.”

The accident affecting I-95, which runs the length of the East Coast from Maine to Miami, left a section of the northbound side of the highway in a heap of ruins and damaged a southbound section so badly that it will be demolished this week. This stretch of the highway, in northeastern Philadelphia near the Delaware River, is used by about 160,000 vehicles a day, officials said. But much of the interstate traffic traveling through the region already bypasses Philadelphia using the New Jersey Turnpike, which runs roughly parallel to I-95 east of the river and becomes I-95 farther north, on the way to New York City.

Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania said in a news conference on Sunday that he expected it to take months for the damaged section of the interstate to be repaired. He issued a “proclamation of disaster emergency” on Monday, making $7 million in state funds available immediately and making it easier to draw on federal funds.

Federal, state and local officials are looking into the cause of the fire and the collapse of the elevated highway section, . A spokesman for the Pennsylvania State Police said that a body had been recovered from the wreckage and has been turned over to the medical examiner. Authorities were in the process of identifying the remains.

In public remarks at an engineering conference on Monday, Pete Buttigieg, the U.S. transportation secretary, pledged his agency’s full support for restoration efforts, saying that the accident will mean “extensive disruption for the movement of people and goods through that region.”

Across Philadelphia and its suburbs, Monday was full of strategizing, testing the detours suggested by officials and heeding the wisdom of local traffic reporters, who spent the morning breaking down different approaches to downtown like football coaches before the big game.

“One of the problems with this stretch of 95 is there really are not great, perfect alternates,” said Matt Pellam, the traffic reporter on the morning broadcast of the local ABC television affiliate. “Over the next few days, I think people are going to try out different options to see which is least awful.”

Commuters were learning what may be in store for the next few months.

Some found that the frenzy of preparation had apparently paid off, with commutes that were, against all expectation, easier than usual.

“I don’t know when was the last time I got out of my neighborhood that quick on a Monday,” said John Gramlich, a plumber, who has a daily commute of about three to four miles. “There was less traffic than I’m used to having.”

Tom Maroon, who runs a nonprofit and takes I-95 northbound in the mornings, had the same experience. “The main roads in the neighborhoods seemed to have more volume, especially trucks,” he said. But while he was driving north on undamaged parts of I-95, he said by phone from his car, traffic was flowing more quickly than usual.

After he arrived at his office, though, Mr. Maroon found that many people on his staff had not been so lucky. “One guy said his bus went one block in 12 minutes,” he said in a text message.

Anna Betts contributed reporting.