NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — A multi-million dollar resurfacing project on the FDR drive has finished ahead of schedule.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Department of Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg announced the completion of the 9.5-mile resurfacing project on Monday morning.

The $8.5 million project kicked off in July. Over the last several months, drivers faced regular road closures as sections of the FDR drive from Montgomery Street, located just south of the Williamsburg bridge, to 125th Street in Harlem, were repaved.

The project took 35,000 tons of asphalt, applied by DOT workers over 72 nights, WCBS 880’s Rich Lamb reported.

“They approached the FDR as a single unit,” de Blasio said. They went at the whole thing simultaneously in less than six months,” de Blasio said.

The project was initially slated to take around six months, with a price tag of around $11 million.

According to de Blasio, this is the first time the FDR drive has been repaved end-to-end since its initial completion in 1966.

“Thirty-five lane miles, all in less than six months,” de Blasio said. “That’s never been attempted before in the history of this city, certainly never been achieved before.”

According to the de Blasio administration, the FDR project is just one part of the $1.6 billion plan to resurface New York City roads over the next ten years. Around 2,500 city roads are expected to be repaved within the next 18 months, the de Blasio administration said in a statement.

When de Blasio was asked whether the project had special priority because it’s the most direct route to Gracie Mansion, de Blasio said no, saying that the project was all about the condition of the roadway and driving complaints.

“We’ve heard complaints about this one for a long, long time,” de Blasio said. “For one of our busiest roads, absolutely, was well beyond the point that it needed a major overhaul.”