South Kitsap resident Walt Neff got quite a birthday present Wednesday morning as he was one of the first few drivers to use the new on-ramps at the opening of the Burley-Olalla Interchange.

“We really needed this,” said Neff, newly 73, who lives on Bethel-Burley Road and said about “50,000 trucks a day” drove by his house while the underpass was being built and vehicles couldn’t access State-Route 16 from Burley-Olalla Road. “If I had a dollar for each one, I’d be in Vegas right now.”

Neff and several other members of local car clubs had driven their classic Fords and other models to christen the project, which the Washington State Department of Transportation officially declared completed Oct. 7.

“We will open (the interchange) today, nine months sooner than originally planned,” said Paula Hammond, Secretary of the WSDOT, who recalled when the late Sen. Bob Oke (R-Port Orchard), first talked to her about the dangerous road 16 years ago.

“I was the program manager for the Olympic Region in 1993 when Bob Oke began his mission to improve this road,” Hammond said. “It took us a while, as you can see. The money was there, and then it was gone, then it was there and gone again. But I needed to fulfill a promise I made to Sen. Oke, who was a champion for this project.

Oke’s widow, Judy, then addressed the crowd gathered, saying she was so delighted she felt “like dancing,” and that she knew her late husband was happy, as well.

“I’m sure he’s up there, just smiling down on us,” she said.

While traffic has been traveling on the new highway over Burley-Olalla Road for weeks now, access to the highway from the road has still been blocked. Officials said the on-ramps would open by 2 p.m. Wednesday, but that the off-ramps would remain closed.

Before work began in July of last year, cars wanting to get from one side of Burley-Olalla Road to the other had to cross four lanes of highway traffic and navigate a labyrinth of turn lanes.

And during the closure, access was blocked to all but emergency vehicles.

“We’ve been waiting for this,” said Olalla resident Judy Ebbert, who lives on Banner Road.

Not only was the closure a pain for locals, but Ebbert said visitors would often get lost trying to find her house after detouring off the highway. “If they didn’t have GPS, they were in trouble.”

The underpass replaced the last “at-grade” intersection on SR-16, and Kitsap County Sheriff Steve Boyer said it will improve safety and likely save many lives.

“I spent 27 years at the Washington State Patrol, and spent a lot of time (over here) directing traffic after accidents,” Boyer said. “I am so impressed at how this turned out.”

The $24 million project was completed at $1.2 million under budget by Ceccanti Construction.