The troublesome water line that burst last night under the Jones Falls Expressway – the pipe’s third major break since 2009 – is scheduled to be replaced within three years.

The Department of Public Works said replacement of the 30-inch cast-iron main running underneath Madison Street – which a supervisor told The Brew was originally installed in 1861 (“That’s the year Lincoln became president and the Civil War started!”) – is considered a high priority and is already in design.

Construction of a new main, running about one mile from the JFX to Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., is scheduled to begin in 2016.

Last night’s break under the JFX was the third since February 2009. Last November, the pipe burst half a block to the west, closing Madison Street between Guilford Avenue and Calvert Street for nearly a week.

Water Outages

Madison Street will remain closed between Fallsway and Guilford for an undetermined time as crews begin to assess the damage of last night’s break.

Residents and one business on the 800 block of N. Calvert Street are without water, a DPW spokesman reported this afternoon. Another nearby apartment building is without water service.

Customers in Mt. Vernon who experienced temporary water outages are asked to run their taps for several minutes to remove sediment. DPW says customers without water should call 311.