I-676 Will Be Closed Intermittently Over the Next Week

The Vine Street Expressway will be closed overnight — tonight and all next week — as part of a $64.8 million bridge replacement project.

Traffic on the Ben Franklin Bridge

Photo | Jeff Fusco

The Vine Street Expressway bridge replacement project began in April, and it’s going to lead to a more pedestrian-friendly makeover of the area from PennDOT.

Of course, replacing seven bridges is also going to inconvenience a bunch of drivers for the next few years. We’ve now entered into a phase of that. For the second straight week, the Vine Street Expressway will be closed between I-76 and Broad Street from Friday at 11 p.m. to Saturday at 5 a.m.

Next week, I-676 in Center City will be closed overnight between the same exits from Sunday to Thursday (from the same 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. time). PennDOT has several detours listed for cars.

PennDOT is demolishing the deck on the Family Court pedestrian bridge overnight in the first stage of the federally funded $64.8 million project. Construction will continue through August before being halted for a month for the World Meeting of Families.

Stage 1 of construction is scheduled to last until April 2017, with the Ben Franklin Parkway getting reduced to two lanes each way during some of the construction. Two more years of work will follow. PennDOT says the current bridges are deteriorating.

The project’s website has extensive information about streetscape improvements. It should look nice. Now we just have to deal with construction until the end of the decade.

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