State and city officials, who earlier had said that the closing might last five days, said yesterday afternoon that they were hoping to have the highway back in business in two days.

Gene Blaum, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, said it could be open late tonight.

"If we can open it any sooner, we will," he added, responding to a question about whether it might be ready by rush hour this afternoon.

"This is a round-the-clock operation," Blaum said. "We are going to get that road reopened as soon as possible.

"There are some uncertainties, however, when it comes to construction. There's a utility line that has to be moved, delivery of materials because those trucks are going to be fighting the same traffic that drivers are facing."

The crack - 8 feet long and up to 2 inches wide - occurred in a support tower in the middle of the superhighway. It threw traffic into mass confusion. Motorists were forced to detour around a two-mile section between Girard and Allegheny Avenues.

Large trucks traveling on I-95 were detoured over Interstate 676, Interstate 76, Route 1/Roosevelt Boulevard and Route 63 (Woodhaven Road).

Northbound cars exited at Girard Avenue and were channeled back to I-95 north, while southbound motorists exited at Aramingo Avenue and were detoured to I-95 south.

No one likes to be held up in traffic, so there were some impatient people delayed by the highway closing just before midnight Monday.

One was Mary English, who was filling her Dodge Caravan at a service station at Allegheny Avenue and Richmond Street.

"Drivers can't be happy about this," she said, gesturing at an endless line of trucks moving down Richmond on the way to Aramingo.

"The traffic is usually bad enough as is, but this is a nightmare," she said.

James Tyson was waiting for a Route 25 bus on Richmond Street, and said he knew he was going to be late to work in North Philadelphia.

"There has to be a way for these cars to go," Tyson said. "My bus is already late. There's just too many cars on the street."

Longtime resident Paul Stevenson said he had never seen such a high volume of traffic at Ann Street and Aramingo Avenue.

"The cars will just have to wait," Stevenson said. "Better this than [I-95] falls."

Erika Hazel, a motorist at Somerset and Aramingo, complained about wasting gasoline.

"Gas is up and [I-95] is down," she said. "Go figure."

Residents will be inconvenienced further as the city suspended today's trash pickup in the area. But garbage crews will resume pickup on Saturday, according to the city managing director's office.

Gov. Rendell, Mayor Nutter and Transportation Secretary Allen Biehler went to the scene of the crack yesterday afternoon and held a news conference.

"I applaud the effort of PennDOT and all of its partners who responded so quickly to this monumental challenge," Rendell said. "This corridor is crucial to the economic well-being of the region."

"The seven-inch buckling of the Birmingham Bridge in Pittsburgh and now the discovery of this large crack under I-95 are a wake-up for us," Rendell said.

The governor was referring to a structural problem that closed the State Route 2085 Birmingham Bridge, which buckled just three days after Rendell urged the state Legislature to approve $200 million per year to fix 1,000 state bridges in the next three years.

"We have 6,000 bridges waiting to be repaired," Rendell said yesterday. "This is how serious and immediate the problem is."

The crack in question on I-95 didn't develop overnight. A small crack had been spotted two years ago. It was checked periodically and in October was judged to still be relatively minor.

On a recent inspection, however, it was found to have opened up significantly, and a decision was made to close the road and fix it. *