Hundreds of people gathered in downtown Reno Tuesday afternoon for a ribbon cutting ceremony of the new Virginia Street Bridge.
A team of champion mules and historic cars from the National Automobile Museum were the first to cross the new structure during the public event.
Mayor Hillary Schieve says the project went remarkably quickly.
"This is pretty miraculous. We finished in 10 months; we had predicted 18 months," she explains. "We came in under budget. Over 80,000 hours of labor was put into this bridge--so many people that were apart of this, so I couldn't be more proud to be the mayor of such an incredible city and see this happen."
She says adding more pedestrian-friendly amenities around the bridge, like stairs to the river and public art, will help bring more people to the city center.
"My big dream is to really revitalize downtown, so this is just one piece of that and I couldn't be more thrilled."
The bridge will reopen to vehicle traffic overnight tonight.
