The good news and the bad news of MoPac right now
When it comes to the new and improved MoPac there's good news and there's bad news.
Let's get the bad out of the way first.
For one, some drivers just don't get it.
Friday morning Fox 7's Rudy Koski saw a driver mowing over those white sticks to make a fast and not-so-clean getaway out of the Express Lane.
Umm -- that's not how this works...
"We obviously don't want people crossing the double white lines. That is illegal and hitting the plastic delineator sticks that cause damage to some vehicles especially when hit at high speed...it's also again illegal," said Steve Pustelnyk, Director of Community Relations for the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority.
More bad news: some drivers may have noticed a few missing panels in the sound walls. Apparently some panels are being replaced after cracking was found.
Pustelnyk says the issue was discovered in the spring.
"Some of the walls that are already up we've noticed some cracking in them so we did an engineering analysis to determine what was causing the cracks and now measures are being put in place to modify the walls and correct that issue and in some cases replace some of the panels that are cracked," Pustelnyk said.
Pustelnyk says there are 2 types of sound walls. Those that were cast in place on MoPac. Those are fine. The ones with some cracking at the bottom were made off-site and assembled on MoPac.
Pustelnyk says they still have about half of the walls to put up on the MoPac project.
"At this point we're supposed to have all of the walls complete by June of 2018 so over the next 6 to 7 months you'll see both the walls that are already up being modified and then you'll see all of the walls that have not been started yet going up," Pustelnyk said.
Okay here's the good news.
People are using the new Express Lanes and some have noticed a less miserable drive.
"In the southbound direction we've seen about 13,000 to 14,000 trips a day and that is above projection, in the range of an above projection," he said.
On Twitter this week, Denise tweeted a picture of Charlie getting his golden ticket from Willie Wonka: "My face when I realize the southbound MoPac Expressway Lane is open during my morning commute."
But others -- still not impressed.
C.J. wrote "$3.55 to be at work on time? Yeah I'm going to be late."
"Most of the time during the peak of rush hour they're staying in the 2 to 4 dollar range, occasionally we have crossed over the $6 threshold. But when that occurs it's for a very short period, usually only 5 or 10 minutes,” Pustelnyk said.
And Evil MoPac continues to be Evil MoPac. After Halloween he wrote "Confession. I dressed up as Hipster MoPac last night."
Pustelnyk says in the future the hope is to have a regional express lane network to get drivers all the way across town. Express Lanes on 183 up to Lakeline and going south across Ladybird Lake.
And of course TXDot announced this week they're looking at adding express lanes on I-35.