New ramp now open from Cottman Avenue directly to southbound I-95

PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — You may not see it on Google Maps yet, but it’s there. With Tuesday’s noontime opening of a new ramp to I-95 southbound, PennDOT has wrapped up two years of construction at the Cottman Avenue interchange in Northeast Philadelphia.

Now, drivers who want to get on I-95 southbound from Cottman Avenue don’t have to make a right turn onto State Road to get to the Longshore Avenue ramp a half-mile away. They can head straight across onto the newly opened Cottman ramp, says PennDOT’s Harold Windisch.

“Go through a couple of stop signs, a signal, and it took a while,” said Windisch.

“Now you won’t have this. They can just come across the intersection, take that ramp to 95 and head south on 95.”

It’s estimated 18,000 vehicles a day will use the new Cottman on-ramp.

The opening of the Cottman Avenue on-ramp wraps up a two-year, $53 million project to rebuild the interchange — a project interrupted by the fiery tanker crash last summer that caused an I-95 overpass to collapse.

Windisch says the nearby Longshore Avenue on-ramp to South 95 was originally supposed to be temporary, but he says it’ll remain open for now, at the city’s request.

“That ramp at Longshore, although it was temporary, we’re going to leave it in for now. We talked to the city.”

PennDOT is also rebuilding Wissinoming Street between Cottman and Princeton avenues, now that the ramp is finished.