For the foreseeable future, commuters who rely on I-95 will need to find an alternative route if they’re trying to travel between the Cottman and Aramingo exits.
In the early hours of Sunday, June 11, a tanker truck on its way to deliver 8,500 gallons of gasoline to an area Wawa station exploded after failing to round a curve. Videos emerged on social media of motorists driving through plumes of smoke and flame, as the highway visibly bounced beneath their cars. Shortly after those videos were taken, a portion of the interstate completely collapsed.
The incident is certainly increasing many commute times, as drivers are forced to get creative and find roundabout ways to reach their destination. However, Bensalem officials are ensuring that the road collapse has yet to drastically affect traffic in the township.
During the June 12 meeting of the Bensalem council, director of public safety Bill McVey said, “The good news, right now, as of 4 p.m. tonight, there’s been no impact to Bensalem Township. We had our officers check 95 continuously throughout the day and monitor the Park & Ride off of Station Avenue, which we thought would be impacted immediately.”
Still, that wasn’t the case. While there was an initial surge in traffic on Sunday as drivers had to exit I-95 at Woodhaven, with traffic diverted to Route 1, McVey said that was the worst of it.
Township engineer Phil Wursta added that, whenever there’s an issue on I-95, there’s an uptick in traffic on Bristol Pike and State Road. Even here, he said, officials have yet to see any concerns that are out of the ordinary.
“I’m pleased to report there are similarly light impacts with regard to the traffic issues. We’ve been looking at all the traffic signals because they are adaptive and made to change traffic signal timing based upon volume,” said Wursta. “So if we see an uptick in volume, those signals will change automatically and will communicate to all the other traffic signals in the line. So if it’s Street Road or most of the other corridors in the township, we have those signals operating that way.”
In an effort to maintain these low-traffic patterns, TMA Bucks executive director Stephen Noll shared with The Times some tips for motorists.
“We encourage I-95 commuters from Bucks County that have the ability to telecommute to do so to keep unnecessary vehicles off the road for workers that absolutely need to get to their places of employment,” he said. “We also encourage people to ride SEPTA Regional Rail and take advantage of the extra capacity and service, and don’t forget to utilize the Share-A-Ride ridematch program at sharearide.agilemile.com to look for carpool options.”
McVey said he’s been in close contact since June 11 with Bensalem Mayor Joe DiGirolamo, Philadelphia leadership and the Office of Emergency Management. Though he offered assistance on behalf of the township, the city has yet to need it.
Completed construction of the collapsed highway section is expected to take months. But in the meantime, Gov. Josh Shapiro announced last Wednesday that a temporary fix is being implemented.
He said during a news conference, “Once complete, cars and trucks can return to this stretch of 95 and then we will work together to build a permanent bridge, while making sure we keep six lanes of traffic open at all times.”
The process of rebuilding seems to be moving in a positive direction. Yet for the family, friends and colleagues of truck driver Nathan Moody, 53, it’s impossible to fill the hole left by this tragic accident. A body recovered last week from the wreckage was later identified as Moody, a father of three who loved his job.
Moody drove for the Pennsauken, New Jersey-based TK Transport Inc., which had another tanker truck explode in 2015. Officials are currently investigating the cause of the most recent incident.
As temporary and, eventually, permanent fixes come to I-95, commuters are urged to follow PennDOT, TMA Bucks and the Bensalem Police on social media for updates and detour information.
“Even though it’s not in our township, it certainly affects everyone trying to transcend from here to the county of Philadelphia,” said Bensalem council president Ed Kisselback.
Samantha Bambino can be reached at sbambino@newspapermediagroup.com
