MIDLAND, Texas — Wednesday begins the demolition process of the Midkiff Bridge.
The north side of the bridge was demolished on May 31, while the south side of the bridge is expected to be demolished on June 1.
While the long term ramifications are set to be positive, the short term cons are causing fits for Midland drivers.
Midland drivers have complained about longer wait times of up to an hour and a half, while having to go out of their way to take alternate routes offered by the Texas Department of Transportation.
"What normally took three minutes to get from here to the Midkiff Bridge, now it takes us about 50 minutes just to get out of the facility just to I-20," said Dwayne Breaux, owner of TRC Services of Texas.
TRC is only a few minutes off of Midkiff Bridge. They deliver sucker rods to oil rigs across West Texas and load up trucks to haul them off to the rigs.
Trucks can be even more difficult to maneuver than smaller cars, especially when hauling a lot of sucker rods behind you.
"There's a lot of road rage that comes with this," said Sterling Beadle, a trucking manager with TRC. "People are frustrated, they're trying to get home. Especially after a long day at work, five o'clock traffic. People are cutting people off, people are being rude, and it's just making them have a difficult time, you know they're pulling a 40-foot trailer behind them."
TRC predicts a total cost loss of $100,000 due to extra costs. Even with traffic delays, deliveries have to be made.
"Our customers expect a time, 6 a.m., 7 a.m., 10 p.m.," said Breaux. "So now, with the traffic situation, with the bridge being out, we've had to had an additional 50 minutes to an hour to our delivery times, and that was kind of unknown. Nobody really knew the impact of the bridge being out until it actually was taken out."
TxDOT has heard what people are saying, and are doing their best to make traffic flow as smooth as it can.
"There's the detours that we have on the website that we have talked about before, also we're looking at maximizing the signal timing," said MaryAnn Cedillo, a public information officer at TxDOT. "We're looking at roadway striping and dedicated turn lanes… we're looking at the conditions are and then trying to adjust as necessary."
While it may be a pain now, TxDOT stresses it'll be worth it.
"Focus on the long term," said Cedillo. "The long term goal would be to have a more efficient corridor on I-20 along the development of that I-20 corridor.