After more than two years of traffic headaches and construction on Cumberland Avenue near the UT campus, known as the Strip, work to improve the busy street has finally finished.
Gov. Bill Haslam joined city leaders to cut the ribbon on Thursday.
In the past 28 months, crews have transformed the corridor between 17th and 22nd Streets in an effort to make it safer and more pedestrian friendly. They reduced traffic from four lanes to three, with one lane of traffic in each direction and a center turn lane.
In addition, they've widened the sidewalks and added landscaping buffers between pedestrians and the street.
There's still some cosmetic work to do on the streetscape project, like planting trees when the weather cools down, but the road work itself is complete.
The city said more than 3,500 cars commute on Cumberland Avenue each day.