U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg promised Tuesday to help repair the East Coast’s main north-south highway as quickly as possible and said that the destruction of a section of I-95 will likely raise shipping costs because truckers must now travel longer routes.
Speaking near the site where an out-of-control tractor-trailer hauling gasoline flipped over on an Interstate 95 off-ramp and caught fire, Buttigieg said he expected that disruptions in trucking routes will put “upward pressure” on costs along the East Coast.
Buttigieg toured the site and then, over the sounds of heavy machinery and demolition, told reporters that “every resource that is needed will be made available” to help Pennsylvania repair the bridge as quickly and safely as possible.
The collapse is snarling traffic in Philadelphia as the summer travel season starts, upending hundreds of thousands of morning commutes, disrupting countless businesses and forcing trucking companies to find different routes.
One body was pulled from the wreckage. The resulting fire caused the collapse of the northbound lanes of I-95. The southbound lanes were compromised by the heat from the fire, authorities say.
It could take weeks, at least, to replace the damaged and destroyed section.
Pennsylvania’s transportation secretary, Michael Carroll, said he expects to release a replacement plan on Wednesday for the roughly 100-foot-long section of I-95.
Buttigieg said he had not seen any sort of estimate of cost increases for shipping, but said the industry is working to make the most of alternative routes. He also suggested that the U.S. Department of Transportation is working with route-selecting software firms such as Google and Waze to optimize their products.
“At the end of the day, there’s no substitute for I-95 being up and running in full working condition,” Buttigieg said.
