A car hit a power line near Johnson and State Streets downtown Thursday afternoon in front of Holy Redeemer Church, forcing traffic to divert onto State Street. In the video, cars wait at the light at State Street and Dayton/Fairchild Streets, near the Orpheum. In the photo, you can see police diverting traffic onto State Street.

This is rare. According to Wikipedia, "The street was a conventional four lane undivided road until 1974, when a proposal was passed by the City of Madison to turn it into a pedestrian mall. Construction on that project began in late June, 1974, with an initial estimated completion budget of $15 million dollars. This conversion left the street as a two lane limited access road, with extra wide sidewalks created on both sides of the now-narrower street. The east-west road allows only city buses, Fire apparatus, police cars, bicycles, delivery vehicles, and pedestrian traffic.