IN PHOTOS: Final leg of Anthony Henday Drive opens to motorists

Provincial and municipal lawmakers joined more than 100 people for the grand opening ceremony for the newly-completed northeast portion of Edmonton’s ring road Saturday.

With the construction of Anthony Henday Drive now fully complete, drivers are able to circle Alberta’s capital on an 80 kilometres stretch of free-flowing road.

READ MORE: Edmonton drivers, rejoice! Northeast leg of Anthony Henday Drive opens Saturday afternoon

Transportation Minister Brian Mason said there will be ripple effects of a completed ring road.

“It produces more efficiency for the transportation of goods. It allows a way around the city so it eases congestion and all of those things help the city and generally the economic performance of the whole region,” he said.

“This is a very complex, very large project. Billions of dollars of investment over four years. A lot could have gone wrong but I think it’s all come off very well in the end.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "This is a very complex, very large project. Billions of dollars of investment over four years. A lot could have gone wrong but I think it's all come off very well in the end."

Below: A look at the grand opening of the northeast portion of Anthony Henday Drive.

Former PC transportation minister Wayne Drysdale was also present at the ceremony. The project started out under the PC government.

“(In) north Edmonton, the growth is tremendous,” Coun. Ed Gibbons, who was at the grand opening, said.

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“A lot of people in north Edmonton work in industry. Industry is here, industry is in the Fort Saskatchewan area, so it’s actually (about)…the freedom of movement.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "A lot of people in north Edmonton work in industry. Industry is here, industry is in the Fort Saskatchewan area, so it's actually (about)…the freedom of movement."

Construction of the northeast portion of the ring road began in 2012 and cost just over $1.8 billion and saw the province use a public-private partnership to fund the project. The total cost of the entire ring road project is approximately $4 billion.

READ MORE: Bird’s-eye view of construction along northeast leg of Anthony Henday Drive

Project manager Bill Van Der Meer said the high cost can be attributed to the number of bridges in the northeast section.

“There’s about 120 bridges in the whole project. In the northeast, there are 47 bridges,” he said. “Bridges and structures are a pretty expensive part of the project so that made this a large dollar amount.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "There's about 120 bridges in the whole project. In the northeast, there are 47 bridges," he said. "Bridges and structures are a pretty expensive part of the project so that made this a large dollar amount."

As he reflected back on the project, Van Der Meer said the biggest challenge of the northeast section was building it on top of an existing roadway.

“This was a complete reconstruction of everything from the bottom up. We would be operating two-way traffic on half of the new highway as we built the new highway for the northbound. We would move traffic two-way onto half of the new highway. There was a lot of construction staging that we needed to do to be able to build new roads on top of old roads.”

While finishing touches on the project are ongoing and some areas will have reduced speed limits as a result, drivers were able to use the stretch of road after barriers were removed Saturday afternoon.

“There’s a little bit of topsoiling and seeding like landscaping – almost all of it is done,” Van Der Meer said. “There’s a few small areas where that’s happening…the smaller speed limit signs and directional signs, a lot of those are in, some are still being put in today.”

Mark Gruszczynski lives at the northern tip of Edmonton underneath the Henday and he works at a refinery on the east side.

He has been taking local roads to get to work while construction was underway. That commute took roughly 45 minutes.

“The traffic has been, in the last year, it’s been a nightmare with the closures and things like that,” he said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "The traffic has been, in the last year, it's been a nightmare with the closures and things like that," he said.

The 34-year-old has been counting down the days for the Henday to open and was excited Saturday to finally drive that section.

“Pretty much ever since they announced it, I’ve been waiting patiently for a while,” he said with a laugh.

Gruszczynski said the commute to work will now only take him roughly 15 minutes, a change that will have ripple effects through the rest of his life.

“We have quite a few friends on the south side. It’ll be nice to get there in 20 to 25 minutes instead of 45 minutes. Getting home soon, you have more time at home with the family,” he said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "We have quite a few friends on the south side. It'll be nice to get there in 20 to 25 minutes instead of 45 minutes. Getting home soon, you have more time at home with the family," he said.

Watch below: The final section of Anthony Henday Drive opened to traffic this weekend. On Monday morning, it handled its very first rush hour. As Fletcher Kent reports, many drivers are excited Edmonton’s ring road is finally complete.

1:50 New leg of Edmonton ring road faces first rush hour

Below: A look at the northeast portion of the northeast portion of Anthony Henday Drive a day before it officially opened.