© Pioneer Press: Jean Pieri A sewer line collapsed at Johnson Parkway and Phalen Boulevard on Friday morning, May 9, 2014, opening a giant crater in the road and forcing messy detours at the major intersection. The intersection will be closed until further notice, and detours will likely last for several days.
Instead of the usual 10-minute trip from his St. Paul home, Po Lee spent an hour Friday trying to reach the Hmong Village Shopping Plaza, through no fault of his own.
"It's hard to get here," said the 22-year-old vendor at the Moon's Kitchen food stand, whose commute was interrupted by detours around a gaping sinkhole that opened up overnight north of the popular weekend destination.
A sewer line collapsed at Johnson Parkway and Phalen Boulevard about 2 a.m. Friday, creating a crater about 25-feet deep alongside the road and forcing traffic to reroute around the major intersection.
Johnson Parkway is the only north-south through-street between Earl Street and White Bear Avenue and a major gateway to Maryland Avenue, which runs east-west through St. Paul's East Side. Emergency contract crews hired by the Metropolitan Council Environmental Services said the detours will likely be in place for four days or more.
"This is a big one; there's no question about it," said St. Paul City Council member Dan Bostrom, who spent the day touring the neighborhood with Public Works Department workers trying to figure out how best to deal with the traffic backups.
Comment: See also this heat map for 2014 to date,