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United States Transportation

After 60 Years, 1,900-Mile-Long Interstate 95 Is Almost Finished (bloomberg.com) 116

Posted by BeauHD from the better-late-than-never dept.
"It has taken 60 years, but a small, strange gap in Interstate-95 is being filled," writes Slashdot reader McGruber. Bloomberg reports: 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. "The benefit of completing this 'missing link' is mobility," said Carl DeFebo, the director of public relations at the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission. The new infrastructure will reduce traffic time for north- and south-bound travelers and ease congestion on local roads that used to connect I-95 to the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
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After 60 Years, 1,900-Mile-Long Interstate 95 Is Almost Finished More

After 60 Years, 1,900-Mile-Long Interstate 95 Is Almost Finished

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  • All praise to Trump! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Surely he is solely and personally responsible for the massive savings and speed completion that occurred since he took office!

    Let's have a military parade to celebrate!

  • Thank God (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Monday August 20, 2018 @09:34PM (#57163802)
    That gap was a major pain in the neck. For the traveler and the locals who lived there. Made it a pain for me to get to the airport or the sports stadiums. Rush hour and events just jammed up that entire area.

    • Re: Thank God (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Forget the sixty years it took to build this road.

      $400,000,000.00 for 8 miles.

      That's $50,000,000.00 a mile for an above ground strip of construction. Good to know the next time the anti train folks whine about Capex.

      • "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"

        For only $400M?

    • I've driven roundtrip through there twice from Baltimore to Boston in 1988 and 1991, and I never even noticed the gap the four times (there and back twice) I've been through there. Amusingly assuming what I remember is correct, you didn't have to pay to get into New Jersey, but you gladly had to pay to leave.

      But seriously, did I just miss the gap?

      • Re:Thank God (Score:5, Informative)

        by SeriousTube ( 2575581 ) on Monday August 20, 2018 @10:49PM (#57164190)
        You might have gone up the NJ Turnpike instead. That's the better route. It's is labeled 95 in its northern parts, but down near Philly, The NJT is in NJ and 95 is on the PA side along the east side of Philly.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          You might have gone up the NJ Turnpike instead. That's the better route. It's is labeled 95 in its northern parts, but down near Philly, The NJT is in NJ and 95 is on the PA side along the east side of Philly.

          The section of the NJ Turnpike from Exit 6 to Exit 1 would have to be rebuilt to Interstate Standards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_standards to be designated as such. Besides, PA lobbied to keep I-95 flowing through their state instead of by-passing the Philadelphia area altogether.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        That's probably because you assumed that I-95 followed the entire length of the NJ Turnpike - which pretty much everyone has assumed all along. But no, I-95 runs down the Turnpike from NYC and then mysteriously stops being signed as such around Exit 9, even though there was no applicable interchange involved. Then the NJ Turnpike ends at the bridge into Delaware, where it meets up with the stub of I-95 that goes through Philadelphia and also mysteriously starts being signed as I-295 after crossing into NJ.

      • Re:Thank God (Score:5, Informative)

        by xjerky ( 128399 ) on Monday August 20, 2018 @10:57PM (#57164232)
        That's probably because you assumed that I-95 followed the entire length of the NJ Turnpike - which pretty much everyone has assumed all along. But no, I-95 runs down the Turnpike from NYC and then mysteriously stops being signed as such around Exit 9, even though there was no applicable interchange involved. Then the NJ Turnpike ends at the bridge into Delaware, where it meets up with the stub of I-95 that goes through Philadelphia and also mysteriously starts being signed as I-295 after crossing into NJ. Anyone going from NYC to DC would be going out of their way to turn off onto this new alignment (using the existing PA Turnpike and using a new interchange to connect to the stub) and add another city (Philadelphia) to drive through. PA is not even a coastal state, so there's no logical reason for I-95 to run through it in the first place - other than politics.

        • You know what? You're right.

        • PA is not even a coastal state, so there's no logical reason for I-95 to run through it in the first place - other than politics.

          Alas politics is enough of a reason to break just about any sane reasoning.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by DocJohn ( 81319 )

          Most people going north or south on I95 never took the route that went through Philly (unless you had a need to go to Philly). Growing up in Delaware, I never understood why I95 even went to Philly, since it basically dead-ends once you get north of the city. It should be called something else, like I-895 or something as it's really just a spur up to Philly and the PA turnpike.

          If you want to go north I95, you go over the Del. Mem. Bridge and take either I295 (free) or the NJ turnpike (toll, and still only a

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by kriston ( 7886 )

        You took the New Jersey Turnpike. It suddenly loses its "I-95" label after the Delaware Memorial Bridge where you start to see occasional "To I-95" signs all the way until Exit 7A for I-195.

        We frequent travelers know to use I-295 north of Memorial Bridge, not I-95, therefore, this new project doesn't really matter to us, either. Nobody who travels this corridor regularly would ever take I-95 in Pennsylvania north of Delaware. We take I-295 through New Jersey. The reason that I-95 even swoops over to Phi

  • ..always in a constant state of construction. Been here almost 20 years, and it's still all fucked up in places from Miami to at least West Palm Beach. I avoid it as much as I can.

    • https://wtfflorida.com/media/9... [wtfflorida.com]

      Seriously, I-95 in Miami is something else. It feels like you're driving on a cobblestone road; it's made of rough concrete with billions of expansion joints. Not to mention everyone drives like they're going to war.

      Personally I'd modify that first panel to say "I-95 north of Palm Beach". Once you enter Palm Beach county, every point south of that is progressively worsening chaos.

    • At least they finally finished the construction widening it to three lanes in each direction from Vero Beach north through Brevard County. The traffic dumping onto 95 North from Malabar Rd. and the backups on 95 South at the Palm Bay Rd. exit made it a real mess before they got that third lane added.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday August 20, 2018 @09:43PM (#57163842)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I'm a conservative Republican. I believe lines are unnecessary regulations and refuse to acknowledge them. I believe we should have the freedom to drive on any part of the road we choose. Many brave patriots died to defend those rights. Murica!

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by GLMDesigns ( 2044134 )
        Create strawmen and then wonder why you are ineffective and surprised that the "stupid" people aren't convinced by your witticisms.

        Republicans don't have a problem with the government building roads. Some anarcho-capitalists and minarchists do, but certainly not the standard Republican.

        And no one - not Republican, nor anarcho-capitalist, would say that we have the freedom to drive on any part of the road we choose.

        Your foolishness only works within the echo chamber and fails everywhere else.
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • I've never heard of Republicans having a problem with the government building roads. The only times that roads would be mentioned would be when they are done by the government for a business entity (hence corruption) or as a make-work project or if done extremely inefficiently (due to corruption).

            I would think that most Democratic Socialists would also have a problem with corporate welfare (building a road specifically to benefit a corporation, or giving cheap electricity - AMAZON) or corruption. Many o
            • 1) Use tax dollars to build the road, 2) then privatize until said road until it falls apart or kills people when a bridge fails 3) Bailout to that private company to fix, profit! Fixed that for you.
              • Political thieves of all stripes do this. These thieves cloak themselves in the language of their constituency. But they're still thieves,

                No conservative or libertarian or minarchist would follow that recipe. Would thieves under the guise of New Deal Democrats in the 1930s and laissez-faire cost cutters in the 1990s do that? Yes.

                But that is not the political philosophy of either New Deal Democrats or laissez-faire Republicans.
        • Where I live, the GOP very actively opposes any effort to allocate new funds for road construction or maintenance - particularly if that contruction or maintenance is planned for urban areas. They have gone so far as to shoot down laws that would allow local jurisdictions to raise taxes to fund such projects.

          So it may be your experience that Republicans don't oppose the government building roads, but that experience is not universal.
          • It's not a philosophical objection to roads (and certainly not to painting lines on the road).

            The question of what tax dollars should be spent on is complicated. Few local areas are willing to pay for their roads. NYC, where I live, depends on state and federal expenditures. NYC could allocate all of the collected gas tax to roads and bridges. It doesn't. It goes into the general fund.

            This lack of accountability, this lack of accountability is a major cause of friction.

            Have 100% of your gas tax go

  • How about DC? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by PeeAitchPee ( 712652 ) on Monday August 20, 2018 @09:47PM (#57163866)
    Being forced to take the Capital Beltway (I-495) all the way around doesn't really count as staying on I-95 to me (or even worse, some other combination of I-395 / 295 / 695 with other highways on the south end). I-95 should go straight thru DC like it does in Baltimore and NYC (but of course now that will never happen). When driving from MD to FL, I need to plan the entire trip around what time I'll be going thru DC -- it's that bad.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kriston ( 7886 )

      We cancelled most of our intercity interstates and built our Metro.

      There have been many recent changes to improve through-traffic on the severely truncated I-95, though.

      I like the huge and empty interchange where I-95 meets the I-495 north of DC. It's like the builders left the stubs and unnecessarily huge bridges there out of spite.

    • Re:How about DC? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Chris Mattern ( 191822 ) on Tuesday August 21, 2018 @12:01AM (#57164524)

      I-95 should go straight thru DC like it does in Baltimore and NYC

      It was originally planned to, of course. I-395 was originally I-95, but they only got it as far as US Route 50 before local politics brought it to a screeching halt and faced with the fact that the rest of it would never be built, they had to designate part of the Beltway (I-495) as I-95, and the designation I-395 was created for the unfinished road through DC. I remember how there used to be signs on I-395 that said "old I-95" (I don't remember the I-95 signs for it--the designation was changed in the late 1970s and I'm not quite old enough to have been driving it back then.)

      I need to plan the entire trip around what time I'll be going thru DC -- it's that bad.

      Rerouting I-95 to the Beltway means it has to cross the Potomac via Wilson Bridge. Isn't having a major Interstate artery cross a drawbridge fun? At least they rebuilt it higher so it doesn't have to open as often--it used to open almost daily.

    • Not just around DC but the entire DC to Richmond corridor on I-95 is terrible. Especially around Fredericksburg. It is not at all uncommon for traffic to be bumper to bumper along that section even during non-peak hours. It is frequently much faster to get off the interstate and travel route 1 which runs parallel to it. You can at least do 45 mph on most of route 1.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by xjerky ( 128399 )
      Boston has the same issue with I-95 not going through, thanks to NIMBYs. (At the very least, it should follow the I-93 alignment, instead of looping all the way around - that's that 3-digit interstates are for.

  • now we need to build 53 and FAP 420!

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday August 20, 2018 @10:58PM (#57164238)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Civil Engineers are Nerds too (Score:4, Informative)

      by ghoul ( 157158 ) on Monday August 20, 2018 @11:20PM (#57164362)

      Not just Computer Engineers

      • Re:Civil Engineers are Nerds too (Score:5, Funny)

        by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Tuesday August 21, 2018 @04:25AM (#57165292)

        There's no such thing as a civil engineer. We're a truly rude and nasty bunch of people.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by WallyL ( 4154209 )

          "Civil engineer" is the term used to describe engineers who work without bullets flying at them from armed enemy combatants. If you have such bullets flying at you, we call you "military engineers."

          • If you have such bullets flying at you, we call you "military engineers."

            No we don't. We call you a combat engineer [wikipedia.org]. Military engineers work on military projects, but are not in combat, and do not perform combat-specific duties.

      • Not just Computer Engineers

        Yes. This "News for Nerds" website spends way too much time talking about information technology and not enough time discussing other technology. There have been recent advances in traffic engineering too. Ever see a diverging diamond interchange? [wikipedia.org]

        • There have been recent advances in traffic engineering too. Ever see a diverging diamond interchange?

          Yes. There are at least two of them on I-70, one over, one under. The one over made a great deal of sense. It serves a mall, with the majority of traffic being required to cross the highway after exiting. The other one seems a little gratuitous. The crossroad it was constructed for was fairly low-traffic to begin with, and that hasn't changed appreciably.

  • It was intended to replace US 1 in New Jersey (Score:5, Informative)

    by kriston ( 7886 ) on Monday August 20, 2018 @11:30PM (#57164398) Homepage Journal

    Interstate 95 was always intended to be built along the right-of-way of US 1 in New Jersey between Princeton and New Brunswick. Driving in the area you can see where property along US 1 was condemned and cleared in anticipation of I-95, but the highway construction never happened due to local opposition.

    This "re-routing" is a bit more than re-signing a 20-mile-longer route over existing interstates that we were already using over the past 30 years to bypass that missing segment. We would take I-295 from the Delaware Memorial Bridge, take I-195 eastbound, and then join the New Jersey Turnpike northbound where it formally takes on the I-95 designation. It was not labelled I-95 south of I-195.

    Along with the re-labeling of these roads there are a lot of new roadway, bridges, and interchanges as well to optimize the dangerous merges. I-295 will revert to become a kinda-Philadelphia-bypass (a.k.a., "half-assed Beltway and southern bypass") as originally intended. The "new" I-95 will ultimately become this haphazard zig-zag highway that nobody wanted with an extra twenty miles more than the originally-proposed route through Princeton. But, at least they can say "I-95 is finally completed."

    Meanwhile, the New Jersey Turnpike express lanes, a.k.a., "dual-dual" configuration, have been extended far south of the Exit 7A I-195 interchange.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by xjerky ( 128399 )
      The dual-dual configuration runs all the way to the PA Turnpike Exit now (construction completed around 2013), which I-95 will now use.
  • Oh nice! Construction done on an interstate? Better start construction on the beginning again.

  • 50 years of not-so-fond memories (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Joe Branya ( 777172 ) on Tuesday August 21, 2018 @02:41AM (#57165034)

    I spent 50 years driving DC to Rhode Island.

    About this interchange: The Penn Turnpike was built before the interstates and was a toll road. So the 1950s connector between the new NJ section of I-95 (at exit 7A I think) and the Penn Turnpike was a "turnpike only" connection. Pennsylvania refused to allow it to connect to free roads so when a free interstate was run through Philadelphia there was no connection . The same thing happened in western MD where I-70 came near the Turnpike. PA refused to connect them so all travelers were shuttled through two miles of Pennsylvania Burger Chefs and gas stations in order extract some money before the traveler could get to the Penn Turnpike. It was the county's biggest business.

    Two miles west of the NJ Turnpike at exit 7 is the golden north-south road; I-295, which goes through the NJ suburbs of Philadelphia all the way to the Delaware Memorial Bridge and is free. All the trucks going south get off the Jersey Pike at exit 7, gas up, take a snooze and head south on the free road, now- finally- well marked. Until about 2000 the road was never mentioned when you were going south in New Jersey and coming north into NJ across the Delaware Memorial Bridge (which incidentally has a phenomenal view- get in the right-hand lane, go slow and take in the view) there was simply an exit called "route 130". If there is heavy traffic going south on the Jersey Pike (every Sunday in the summer) get off on 295 and get straight to the bridge- no five mile backup to pay the tolls. The whole goal of NJ was to keep you off the free road and keep you paying the NJ highway toll- it was just like the Penn Turnpike.

    If it is late fall and your are driving NYC to DC go down the main eastern shore roads and look at the flocks of geese wheeling and landing in the freshly harvested corn fields. They are huge, dignified birds and loud. Stop for 20 minutes and really look. This is the real thing- a National Geographic show in front of your eyes. Children are amazed. Then head to DC via the Bay Bridge at Annapolis- free heading south.

    In my early youth dodging tolls was an art form. There were seven 25 cent tolls on the Connecticut Turnpike between RI and NYC; just flip the coin and drive on. Late at night the rich people would often miss, grumble and throw a second coin. So we poverty-stricken college students at 2 am would pretend to miss, get out of the car and usually harvest half-a-dozen quarters before the toll collecters could stop us (they had a nice side job keeping the coins for themselves). By the time we hit NYC we were usually $ 10 richer, enough to pay for the gas (30-50 cents/ gallon and in a price war as low as 19 cents). At the time the federal minimum wage was 85 cents/hour.

    I still know the back roads through the Bronx to avoid the horrible NYC jams on the GW Bridge and at least once in your life heading north at 2 am (the best time to go through NYC) you should go through town via the 1920s, two lane Holland Tunnel turn left and surf north on 7th/8th Avenue with the cabs, an endless stream of red lights timed at 25-30 mph going almost 10 miles north to the GW bridge and back onto 95 north. Today heading north I usually go DC to Baltimore, north to Harrisburg and across the mountains with the trucks to the new Tappen Zee and I 84. A bit longer but much nicer.

    The driving into New England is so bad that most truckers refuse to do it and if they do drive it must charge very high rates, which is why New England has such lousy fruits and vegetables and at such high prices. If this were Europe they would widen I-81, cross the Hudson north of the Tappen Zee and get straight to the Mass Pike. I've just spent the summer in the Balkans, often traveling by bus. Bosnia and Macedonia now have better interstates that the U.S. and far more interesting truck stops. And you should see how they build the new divided roads- much higher quality than in the U.S.- they are built to last. But then the locals compare the new EU roads to the Roman roads- they expect the bridges to last for 1,000 years.

  • Breezewood. It is *not* a traveler's oasis as the local businesses like to claim. It's an abomination of price gouging and poorly timed traffic lights.

  • I-95 doesn't go through Trenton, New Jersey.

    There's a Sesame Street theme park [wikipedia.org] near where I-95 ends in Pennsylvania.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by xjerky ( 128399 )
      Which is stupid since all of the signs in North Jersey give Trenton as its control city.
  • From 295 to 95. Literally. Now 295 runs back towards Philly a bit but it is combined with 95. I always thought it was part of replacing the Scudders Falls bridge. 95 Disappeared above Trenton right at the river and reappeared down past 195. They literally '"Fixed" the problem' Office space style.

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