ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. -- The gridlock in east Orange County is about to ease. The construction project on the 408, between Oxalis Avenue and Conway Road, has been going on for close to three years now, but some of the new lanes are about to open.

The Expressway Authority won't say exactly when the new lanes are going to open; it's going to make that call in about a week or so. But the lanes could open as soon as two weeks from now.

"It is a terrible morning on the 408, one of the worst I've seen in quite a while," WFTV's Bob Baxa said Wednesday morning during an on-air traffic report.

Baxa was talking about the 130,000-car morning commute into downtown Orlando from east Orange County, the 9.5-mile stretch between Alafaya Trail and Mills Avenue.

It took Wednesday morning's commuters almost seven times longer than it should have, 60 minutes, to get to downtown westbound on the 408. Eyewitness News had a crew drive the same stretch at the speed limit and it took only nine minutes.

But a third EPASS lane should be open at Conway westbound in the next few weeks and really ease things up through there in the mornings.

"That's great! Traffic right now is horrible. As many lanes as they can add, better for the commuters in the morning," commuter Jeb Agnini said.

The new westbound EPASS lane has been done for some time, but barrels are blocking it because the new lanes on the other side of the toll plaza are not ready to open.

"So motorists will be able to transition through without doing lane changes and hopefully improve the safety," toll agency spokesman Brian Hutchings said.

As for the rest of the $77 million project to put five lanes in each direction between Crystal Lake and Conway and widening the Crystal Lake and Lake Underhill overpasses, that's going to take a little longer.

The whole project on the east side of downtown is scheduled to be done by next spring and so far, the Expressway Authority says the project is right on time. So, in another half year or so, it might actually be an expressway for toll payers again.