The July 4 target date they set when ``the bridge was still smoldering'' turned out to be too optimistic, said Andrew Warren, PennDot district administrator. But, barring unusual weather problems, the damaged section is to reopen July 15, and the traffic now squeezing through four lanes will flow through six as usual.
In New Jersey, meanwhile, a fatal accident on I-295 in Cherry Hill, just south of Route 70, closed southbound lanes for two hours during the afternoon rush hour.
Earlier in the afternoon, at PennDot's regional office in Radnor, department engineer Karl Ziemer watched the latest I-95 pileup on eight television screens and sent computer bulletins to transportation officials up and down the East Coast.
``It's been quite a week,'' he said, watching the heat shimmer above stalled traffic near the Walt Whitman Bridge, 18 miles away.
That traffic jam was due to the second mishap of the day, which struck at 2:30 p.m. in South Philadelphia - just as work crews in Chester prepared to reopen I-95 after dealing with the gas-main break.
A flatbed tractor-trailer heading south on I-95 turned over onto its side on a curve between the bridge and Broad Street, blocking all three southbound lanes. The rig was carrying containers of trash which tumbled off and broke open, spewing tons of debris across the roadway that had to be removed with a front-end loader, police said. No one was hurt, said a Highway Patrol officer. The cause of the crash was under investigation.
The mishap closed the roadway well into the evening, backing traffic during rush hour to Penn's Landing. Southbound motorists had to exit at Front Street; northbound traffic was backed up to the Girard Point Bridge, where a lane was blocked for emergency vehicles.
