A long-awaited link between Interstate 95 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike is moving forward with approval of one section of the construction.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission agreed Thursday to separate the $155 million section from the total $420 million project.
Beginning in June, the money will pay for widening and reconstruction of about four miles of the turnpike in Bristol Township as well as building three new turnpike bridges and installing ramp piers.
"I've worked on this for over a decade," Montgomery County Commissioner Leslie Richards, who is the vice chair of the DVRPC, told the Inquirer. "It's been a long time coming."
Completion of the first stage of the direct connection in 2018 will reroute I-95 onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike and then the New Jersey Turnpike, finally providing an unbroken I-95 between Maine and Florida. There is currently a missing section in New Jersey near Trenton.
