The so-called "road from hell" in South Wales has finally been completed after 23 years of roadworks, with the contraflow system being removed last week.
The £2billion project, which began in 2002, has transformed the A465 Heads of the Valley into a full dual carriageway designed to bring prosperity to one of the UK's most deprived areas.
The 28-mile upgrade programme was initially drawn up by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Government in 1990 due to frequent tailbacks and serious crashes on parts of the route.
After enormous overspends, major delays, a global pandemic and hundreds of carriageway closures, drivers can now travel directly between Swansea and Monmouthshire without passing through roadworks for the first time in 23 years.
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The A465 Heads of the Valley project has finally been completed
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The road has been dubbed the "road from hell" by locals and experts during its lengthy construction period, the BBC reported.
Work to turn the road into a full dual carriageway began when Tony Blair was Prime Minister in 2002. The project crosses the south Wales coalfields and a national park, with some parts twisting close to people's homes.
The Heads of the Valleys upgrade was split into six sections, tackled from the most to least dangerous for drivers, with almost 70 structures being built as part of the upgrade, including more than 40 new bridges and a dozen new junctions.
The scheme faced significant challenges when the UK left the European Union in the middle of the project, cutting off access to funding that had helped finance previous sections.
Critics have slammed the Welsh Government for its financing plan for the A465 Heads of the Valley project
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This forced the Welsh Government to seek alternative financing methods to complete the final stretch of the upgrade.
Wales' Transport Secretary Ken Skates previously said: "In 50 years' time, experts will look back and say the single biggest thing the Welsh Government has done to raise the prospects of Heads of the Valleys communities is building this road.
"This is about generating jobs, prosperity, opportunities and better connecting and benefiting communities across the region."
The upgrade is designed to cut journey times between West Wales and the Midlands while boosting economic prospects for the region.
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The final stretch between Dowlais Top in Merthyr Tydfil to Hirwaun in Rhondda Cynon Taf is being financed using the Mutual Investment Model (MIM), described as similar to getting a car on finance.
The Welsh Government will pay more than £40million a year for 30 years, while a private firm will maintain an 11-mile stretch of the road until 2055, when it is brought back into public ownership.
The final stages cost £590million to physically complete the upgrades, but will cost a staggering £1.4billion due to this financing method, with Plaid Cymru calling this funding approach a "waste of public money", claiming private firms would "cream off" a "substantial amount of profit".
The Welsh Conservatives said the cost and delays "epitomise Labour's 25 years of failure in Wales".
The project was initially earmarked by Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
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Nikki Webb, 49, who lives in Hirwaun, said her village had been "stuck right in the middle of it all" during construction, which caused "chaos all the time" with lorries coming into the village.
She added: "You can get to Merthyr so much quicker, I don't find there's traffic like there used to be."
The completion marks a significant change from earlier this year when one affected man from Merthyr Tydfil described the Heads of the Valleys as "like the road from hell", adding: "Not even Chris Rea would dare come here."
Workers have planted 285,000 trees to mitigate the project's significant environmental impact, offsetting more than seven million kilograms of CO2 a year in a country which declared a climate emergency six years ago.
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