Finally, all of those orange cones, lane shifts and closed ramps have given way to a new and improved freeway for Salt Lake City's Sugar House area.

Gov. Gary Herbert on Thursday afternoon guided a 24-wheel bridge-moving platform through an "Innovate 80" banner to signal completion of the Interstate 80 reconstruction from State Street to 1300 East. It followed more than two years of idling and occasional white-knuckle driving for Sugar House residents and retailers.

"It was bad," said Kim Cawdery, who lives just southwest of where 1300 East crosses the freeway, "but you know what? As far as construction being fast and efficient, it probably was better than most."

That efficiency accounts for the Utah Department of Transportation's "Innovate 80" project label. Crews replaced bridges at 300 East, 500 East, 600 East, 700 East, 900 East and Highland Drive by building them next to the freeway and then rolling them into place during road closures that typically lasted a day or less. The department says this saved years of work and immeasurable traffic delays.

The only remaining closure is on one of two westbound on-ramps at 1300 East -- the cloverleaf that serves traffic approaching the freeway from the south -- and UDOT says touch-up work this weekend will enable an opening before Monday morning.

The $139 million project that began in August 2007 included new bridges along the interstate up Parleys Canyon and heading toward Wyoming, for a total of 16 structures. The core of the work was from State Street to 1300 East, though. Besides the bridges, that stretch got an extra lane in both directions, plus an auxiliary or exit-only lane between each interchange; concrete pavement; sound barriers; retaining walls; improved interchanges at State Street, 700 East and 1300 East; and a new bridge deck at State Street.

The freeway now has five lanes in each direction, counting the auxiliary lanes.

The rapid bridge replacements drew national attention among engineers and a National Geographic film crew. One of the replacements, actually on Interstate 215 near its approach to I-80, drew about 5,000 onlookers.

"It's a new spectator sport to watch us roll a bridge into place," Herbert quipped at Thursday's ceremony.

UDOT also employed reversible lanes for the first time during a construction project, using heavy equipment to move linked concrete barriers twice a day to provide an extra lane in the direction of peak flow.

For commuters like Cawdery, who works just off of I-80 at Salt Lake City International Airport, construction sometimes meant bypassing the route on city streets. Often, she drove west to 700 East and north to 600 South before finally merging onto I-15/I-80 beyond the construction zone.

Even when traffic wasn't too bad on the freeway itself she took a back-door approach to the neighborhood on-ramp. Northbound traffic on 1300 East often would back up within view of her house, waiting out several lights to get to the ramp. She skirted that by taking Highland instead and then cutting through the Shopko parking lot to the on-ramp.

"Everybody's been doing that, because there's no choice," she said.

At the shopping center that includes the Shopko, workers have complained of difficult commutes that shifted every time a ramp closed or opened. Matt Norwood at Zurchers Party & Wedding Store had trouble in both directions, eastbound to work and westbound en route to classes at Salt Lake Community College on Redwood Road. At times in recent months freeway traffic slowed to 5 mph, he said, so he would take 700 East south to 4500 South and then turn toward the school.

Crews didn't have much room to maneuver in the corridor during construction, and at times motorists were driving on temporary lanes that were 6 inches narrower than usual. Norwood said his friends noticed.

"When I would drive my friends, they didn't want to go on there because they thought I'd hit the wall," he said.

In fact, the cramped lanes did lead to some bad accidents when motorists ignored pleas to slow down. In response UDOT paid overtime to state troopers to crack down on speeders in the construction zone, and they have issued more than 3,500 tickets with enhanced fines since March 2008.