US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said there’s “no question” the collapse of a section of Interstate 95 in northeastern Philadelphia will result in higher prices of goods on the East Coast.
(Bloomberg) — US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said there’s “no question” the collapse of a section of Interstate 95 in northeastern Philadelphia will result in higher prices of goods on the East Coast.
The failure is having an outsized impact on commuters and the movement of goods and services, Buttigieg said Tuesday at a press conference at the site.
The 1,924-mile (3,096-kilometer) interstate runs from Miami to the Maine-Canada border. It’s part of a critical long-distance trucking and commuting route. The portion of the highway, which collapsed after a tanker-truck fire on Sunday, carried an average of 160,000 vehicles a day, he said, 8% of which were commercial trucks.
“Obviously, that is a lot of America’s GDP moving along that road every single day,” Buttigieg said.
Those trucks will now be subject to a 40-mile-long detour along mostly non-interstate roads that include more than 60 traffic lights, according to the American Trucking Associations.
Road closures and heavy traffic may encourage more people to work from home or avoid travel in the area, according to Cora Bruemmer, an analyst at S&P Global Ratings. If these decreases impact economic activity in Philadelphia, it could negatively affect revenue streams, she said.
A key factor will be the speed with which state and local groups can access federal funding and work on repairs, something Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro said could potentially take months.
Philadelphia is well-positioned to handle any potential drops in revenue given the city’s current financial situation and positive outlook, Bruemmer said.
The incident is being investigated by the US National Transportation Safety Board, which expects to produce a preliminary report in two to three weeks.
Read more: I-95 Collapse Upends Major East Coast Trucking, Travel Route
–With assistance from Skylar Woodhouse, Alan Levin and Augusta Saraiva.
(Adds comments from the ATA in the fifth paragraph and from S&P analyst starting in the sixth paragrah)
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.