Crosstown Traffic: 20-Second Countdown Clock on Bowery, Sewer Work on Seventh

sinkholeSarah Darville Sewer work on Seventh Street.

Time for your traffic report on the fives!

As you can see here, work continues on Seventh Street between First and Second Avenues, where a new sewer line is being installed following that nutty sinkhole accident. The job is expected to last another four days. A worker said a crack in the previous line created a leak that caused the street to collapse, taking a moving truck with it.

Elsewhere, change has come to one of the traffic-plagued areas that the Department of Transportation targeted for improvement earlier this year.

A new 20-second countdown clock should give pedestrians more time to cross the intersection of Fourth Street and Bowery.

In February, at a meeting with community boards 2 and 3, the transportation department presented a study identifying 15 dangerous and congested intersections. The Bowery north of Houston, it said, was in need of better coordinated traffic signals.

Yesterday, EV Grieve noted that a new countdown clock at the intersection on East Fourth Street and Bowery lasted only seven seconds, which didn’t leave an elderly woman enough time to cross the street. Today, The Local noticed that the clock is giving pedestrians a more reasonable 20 seconds to cross.

More time to stop and smell the roses! Or busted sewer lines or whatever.