"Hug your kids at home, but belt them in the car.” So says a quirky signboard on the new Agra-Lucknow expressway . It’s better everyone belts in, fills up the tank and packs enough to eat as the ride on the country’s longest expressway is no short of an adventure.500 kms in six hours flat, from Mahamaya flyover on Delhi’s doorstep to the capital city of UP. ET took the ride to find this was possible with the new Agra-Lucknow expressway, a showpiece development project of CM Akhilesh Yadav that was built in just 23 months.There are many hitches on the way — like, almost 100 kms of the 326-km e-way is not open yet, there is no petrol pump or any eatery and nearly 50 kms of the e-way has traffic flowing from both sides on the same carriageway. Cows, dogs and pigs do descend on the e-way unhindered. ET spotted nearly two dozen animals knocked down on the expressway — high speed is clearly not advisable here so far.The new e-way is open only for light vehicles yet.Navneet Sehgal, the CM’s key bureaucrat behind the project, told ET that the entire e-way will be open from January 31 and that petrol pumps, eateries and civic amenities will come up at four spots of 10 acre apiece within the next three months. The six-hour drive from Delhi will then become 30 minutes shorter. On the existing Yamuna Expressway, 193 kms down and after two hours from Noida, there is no sign from where to take the new e-way to Lucknow. The old highway with a signboard to Kanpur is the choice at this point as the other ‘inner ring road’ turns to Agra. The new e-way branches out further down from this ‘inner ring road’ but is not open yet.“The e-way is ready till Agra but a railway overbridge is under construction and will be ready by month-end. We built the complicated bridge ourselves after permissions from the Railways Ministry,” said Sehgal.Akhilesh last week tweeted a picture of the bridge, saying it is “perhaps the heaviest, widest and longest ever over railway tracks in India”. Till that bridge is ready, one has to travel 80 kms over one-and-ahalf hours on the existing highway through Firozabad to spot the new e-way. Just short of Etawah, a road branches out for the new e-way, allowing vehicles only of 2.7-metre height on it. A signboard announces the e-way to Lucknow. Commuters have a tough choice here — take the not-yet-tolled 227-km 2.5-hour e-way to Lucknow or travel about 260 kms for four hours on the old highway through Kanpur to Lucknow. ET takes the rather lonely ride on the e-way where cars are seen far and few between.Surprisingly, for the first 34 out of the 40 kilometers on the e-way on Monday, ET found vehicles from both sides using the same carriageway, given diversions and a big road bridge being under construction on one side at the 13-km point. Near this point, Yogesh Yadav and Amit are eating lunch after parking their car. “Thankfully we got lunch from home...you won’t get even a water bottle till Lucknow. Hope you have enough fuel,” Yadav warned.Heavy machines are at work on the closed carriageway, fixing sidebeams and recarpeting the road. At the 14-km point, which abuts Akhilesh’s home Saifai village, cars emerge on to the e-way from a dirt track that is still to be concretised. Things get better from the 40-km mark with side-beams in place. At the 117-km and 145-km points, proper concrete slip roads branch out towards Kannauj and Kanpur. A flat tyre will still be cumbersome with no help forthcoming except the 10-odd UP Dial 100 vehicles which ET found patrolling on the e-way.At the 166-km mark is a 3-km stretch fit for landing by fighter jets. Beyond the 170-km mark, though, road side-beams are missing on a majority of the remaining stretch.At almost five points, herds of cows and pigs descended on the e-way. “Alert today, Alive tomorrow,” says a road sign here, quite prophetically. The e-way ends on Lucknow’s doorstep after a 2.5-hour ride for 227-kms on it.