HOLSTEIN, Iowa (AP) — After six decades of construction, an expansion project to build a four-lane expressway across northern Iowa is finished. The Des Moines Register reports that a ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held Friday in Holstein for the completed U.S. Highway 20 corridor. The corridor now extends 302 miles (486 kilometers) to connect Sioux City with Fort Dodge, Waterloo and Dubuque. Road widening of the expressway’s first 3-mile section started in 1958. But the remaining miles have taken 60 years to complete.

Gov. Kim Reynolds and Rep. Steve King will join Iowa Department of Transportation officials in celebrating the alternative to the often-congested Interstate Highway 80 across Iowa’s midsection. Shirley Phillips is president of the U.S. Highway 20 Corridor Association, a lobbying group representing communities along the route. Phillips says members are ecstatic and never thought they’d see the project’s completed.