A 120-year-old water pipe in Times Square burst early Tuesday morning, sending an estimated 1.8 million gallons of water into the subway system and disrupting morning commutes, officials said.
The 20-inch water main failed just before 3 a.m. on Seventh Avenue between 43rd and 44th Streets, Richard Davey, the president of New York City Transit, said at a news conference. An estimated 300,000 people were affected by subsequent disruptions to lines 1, 2 and 3 during their morning commute.
By late morning, trains on those lines were running late in both directions, Davey said.
“The biggest impact was obviously on the subways, because the water main here is above the subway station,” Rohit Aggarwala, the commissioner of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, said earlier on Tuesday.
Mr Davey said the age and underground location of the subway system made it prone to flooding, but that New York City Transit and the Department of Environmental Protection needed to work together to ensure that future water service interruptions would not severely impact train service. to influence.
Crews are still investigating what might have caused the breach, a spokeswoman for the Department of Environmental Protection said.
Several streets in the heart of Midtown, which had been closed as crews worked to repair water mains, reopened by mid-morning. Only the intersection of 40th Street and 7th Avenue remained closed, according to the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, and it was expected to remain closed for at least the rest of the day.
Mr Davey said more repairs to the subway were needed and would be completed out of hours, adding that Tuesday night’s rush hour commute should not be affected.
