It was a day to celebrate and exhale a sigh of relief.

Duvall Avenue, a major transportation corridor between Renton and Bellevue, reopened Thursday, a shiny new five-lane road with underground utilities and bike paths.

Left behind was more than a year of lost customers for nearby businesses and detours that sent nearby residents on out-of-the way routes to the grocery store.

Those impacts presented the Renton City Council with a tough, politically charged decision. A complete closure would hurt local businesses financially and disrupt the lives of those living not just on Duvall Avenue, but on Union Avenue, one of the major detour routes.

The complaints kept the politicians’ phones ringing. One of the callers was King Parker, himself a council member and an owner of one of those nearby businesses, King and Bunnys Appliances.

The community put up with a lot, Parker said at the ribbon-cutting Thursday. In speaking to the crowd, he called the project “a wonderful, wonderful project to have.”

By cutting the project lifespan in half, the city saved about $4 million.

All seems forgiven now, at least for some.

“Today is great,” said Karen Snodgrass, who lives on Northeast 20th Place. The detours added a mille to her trip to Albertsons.

First, she joked, “They will have to retrain me to drive.”

The ribbon-cutting Thursday on the black pavement under sunny skies drew a crowd of community, business and political leaders, as well as local residents. They all cheered the opening.

Mayor Denis Law said maybe there should have been a ribbon-cutting on Union Avenue as well. The extra traffic on Union generated many of the complaints to city officials.

No one got into an accident because of the work on Duvall or the Union detour. But, Law said a lot of traffic tickets were issued near Sierra Heights Elementary School.

The city worked closely with the community, including the Renton School District, to help offset the Duvall closure’s impacts, including those on Union.

City Council President Randy Corman called the Duvall project the most complex he has dealt with in his 16 years on the council. But the project came in under budget and ahead of schedule, saving the city that $4 million.

The total project cost was about $12 million, with $4 million coming from King County, $5 million from the Washington state Transportation Improvement Board and $2.5 million from the City of Renton.

Until a relatively recent annexation, Duvall Avenue was in unincorporated King County.

The state also contributed about $20 million to the City of Newcastle, which is widening Duvall where it turns into Coal Creek Parkway. Newcastle will have its ribbon-cutting on July 16, separate from Renton’s.

The stretch of roadway through Newcastle has been open, including a new high bridge over May Creek. With the opening of Duvall Thursday, drivers can now go all the way to Bellevue. Gone is that windy narrow road that led into May Valley.

So, after the speeches, Law cut the ribbon. Then, he and Parker jumped into the front seats of a city SUV (Law drove), and led by Renton Police Sgt. Craig Sjolin on a motorcycle, drove through the ribbon for good measure.

Law and Parker were smiling.