Three Lincoln mayors oversaw the opening Friday of the east leg of an elevated roadway near the Bob Devaney Sports Center and State Fair Park.

"Can you believe it? Isn't this something?" former Mayor Coleen Seng said as she walked across the concrete bridge that is part of the $24.8 million east leg roadway project.

Completed about nine months ahead of schedule by Hawkins Construction Co., the east leg is the final piece of the Big X, the popular name given to a major transportation feature of the Antelope Valley Project.

When the roadway was partially done it was called the Big T. (The other three legs of the Big X opened in 2006.)

"The completion of this project turns the Big T into the Big X, and (Coach Tom) Osborne will be the only Big T left in town at this point," Mayor Chris Beutler told 75 people at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

At the end of a 15-minute ceremony, dignitaries pulled apart a large red banner held together with Velcro instead of a cutting a traditional ribbon with scissors.

"The city wanted to reuse the ribbon. We're economy-minded," Beutler quipped.

Seng was chairwoman of the City Council back in 1992 when the first serious Antelope Valley Project discussions began between the city of Lincoln, the Lower Platte South Natural Resources District and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The three became the project's sponsors and formed the Joint Antelope Valley Authority to oversee construction of the flood-control, transportation and urban revitalization components at a total cost of $246 million.

The Antelope Valley Project has been part of the mayoral administrations of Mike Johanns, Don Wesely and Seng, Beutler noted in his remarks. Seng and

Wesely attended Friday's ceremonies and Johanns, now a U.S. senator, sent a representative.

"This is another important milestone for the historic Antelope Valley Project," Beutler said. "An efficient transportation system drives investment, and the Big X is one of the biggest traffic improvements in recent history."

The Public Works and Utilities Department estimates that 44,000 vehicles a day will use the Big X, which spans one of the busiest railroad corridors in the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway system.

Before the elevated roadway was built, about 48 trains blocked pedestrian and vehicle traffic for about five hours each day. Now, traffic is carried over the railroad tracks.

City officials say completion of the Big X and removal of the "at-grade crossings" means BNSF will be able to expand the number of tracks and trains in the corridor, and the quiet zone -- the area in which locomotive horns are not routinely sounded -- will be extended from Sixth and L streets to 70th Street and Cornhusker Highway.

Hawkins Construction finished the east leg in record time, but there was no incentive provision in the contract, said Antelope Valley Project manager Kris Humphrey. Cooperation between BNSF and altering the phases of construction saved enormous amounts of time, she said.

Glenn Johnson, general manager of the NRD, called the east leg roadway a great link in the city's transportation system.

"The pieces of the Antelope Valley Project just keep coming together," he said. "But the whole project is greater than its individual pieces."

The bridge of the east leg provides a good vantage point for the new open channel built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as part of Antelope Valley, Johnson said. The 2-mile channel, part of the flood-control work, extends from Salt Creek south to about J Street and is about 99 percent complete.

Beutler also took the opportunity Friday to plug the proposed Haymarket arena project, which will be voted on next spring.

"There's a very fine building here," the mayor said, referring to the nearby Devaney Center, "but we need an even finer one over there."

Reach Algis J. Laukaitis at 473-7243 or alaukaitis@journalstar.com