Six years after the Mackays to Peka Peka Expressway was given the green light and the community divided over the anticipated 18km road, thousands of people gathered to celebrate the project at a community open day on Saturday.
More than 21,000 people made their way to the Kapiti Coast ExpressDay at Paraparaumu's Te Roto Drive and Waikanae's Te Moana Rd sites, where they had the chance to make their way across 5km of the road via foot, bike and bus for the first time.
Among them was Wellingtonian Jonathan Alve, who was impressed with his walk along the soon to open $630 million road.
"We come up to the coast a lot and so we've been able to see the whole thing develop.
"The bridges are quite impressive and from up there you get a sense of the scale of the project.
"You can see just how far the road goes in every direction, so it's a pretty enormous undertaking."