Across the United States, public infrastructure is crumbling because of legislative gridlock and chronic underfunding. Roads are overcrowded, bridges are well past their expiration date and transit systems regularly face unprecedented delays. But there will be one thing to celebrate as you seethe in beach traffic this weekend—a small, strange gap in I-95 is being filled.
Come September, one of the most audacious public infrastructure projects in U.S. history will be completed after more than six decades of work. Interstate 95 was the crown jewel of the American highway system championed by President Dwight Eisenhower, and yet the plan for an artery stretching the length of the East Coast almost didn’t happen—because of local lawmakers and land-owners in Mercer County, N.J.
Near the Pennsylvania border, drivers have long been forced off the interstate and onto other roadways, only to join back 8 miles away. Transportation officials and civil engineers spent more than two decades and $425 million to eliminate this detour off I-95, the most traveled highway in America, spanning 1,900 miles from Miami to Maine.
The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, which oversees the I-95 Interchange Project, said the new infrastructure—which includes the creation of flyover ramps, toll plaza facilities, environmental mitigation sites, intersections, six overhead bridges, widened highways and new connections to the New Jersey and Pennsylvania turnpikes—will be open to the public by Sept. 24.