Governor Shapiro spoke in Philly on Wednesday morning, noting that the I-95 rebuild will consist of a backfill and temporary roadway, then full reconstruction of the destroyed bridge.

We’ve got a super-secret city source who added the following details about the project:

  • source thinks it will take at least four months just to get the steel beams required for second phase/final rebuild
  • source notes that because this section of 95 was recently redone, the design work and construction specs are already finished and can simply be “dusted off”
  • getting materials is tough right now because “everything is slow”
  • source notes that there were multiple contracts and multiple firms involved with the original work on I-95, including Benesch and Hill International
  • source believes that the biggest “time killer” for these types of projects is union labor
  • the backfill material is “strong” and the local Delco spot mentioned in the press conference is believed to be Aero Aggregates out of Eddystone (a small spot near the airport)
  • rain really screws things up, so we should all “hope for a drought”

Source tells us that “they’ll get the temporary solution up quick, but it’s gonna be a nightmare.”

FYI Governor Shapiro did reveal the firm working on the site at the presser (this nugget via the Inquirer) –


The firm hired to reconstruct the highway, Buckley & Co., has “an open-ended contract,” PennDot Secretary Mike Carroll said. Those types of contracts are “very common in such a scenario” as the 95 collapse, he added.

”The Buckley firm is quite capable of doing this work,” Carroll said. In hiring a firm, he added, PennDot was looking for a group with a readily available workforce and equipment, as well as the expertise for the job.

Buckley handled repairs after the Port Richmond tire fire back in the 90s. They’re also doing the I-95 cap project at Penn’s Landing.

If our super-secret source ends up being correct on all of of this stuff, we are no longer a sports blog, but a civil engineering blog. Kinker and Pagan, the keynote speakers at Drexel 2024 graduation. And if source is wrong, we will delete and deny.