This is an opinion column.

Words I thought would never come out of my mouth. Or my fingers, as the case may be:

I think I may owe the Alabama Department of Transportation … an apology.

Ouch. Just the sound of it made me cringe. Like the squeaking of Styrofoam, or a butter knife on a china plate. Like words coming out of Roy Moore’s mouth. Ugh.

But I think it might be true. An apology. Or at least an acknowledgment.

I was the one, after all, who predicted this whole Interstate 59/20 rebuild in Birmingham was a disaster in the making. I was the one who figured we’d never be able to verbalize our disdain for the congestion and interminable delays without a catchy name for the project. I was the one who launched a campaign to name it “Clusterstuck,” or the “Birmingham Jam,” or “Cooper’s Folly,” after ALDOT Director John Cooper.

Readers responded, and we were in rare agreement that the construction would turn Birmingham into some kind of transportation Fire Swamp, complete with sucking lightning sand, bursts of flame and bumper-to-bumper rodents of unusual size (ROUS). It would be drawn out and much-delayed, fraught with bureaucratic bumbling and a day, we were sure, that would live in Birmingham infamy.

Like when they tore down Terminal Station.

All that was a year ago. To be more precise, we dubbed the project “Clusterstuck” on Jan. 18, 2019. Less than a year later – 364 days, actually, on Jan. 17 of this year – the westbound lanes opened again. The rest opened Sunday.

Yes yes. I know the financial incentives to contractor Johnson Brothers Corp. paved the way (see what I did there?) and put the project on the fast track (I did it again). The contract gave the company a $250,000-a-day incentive – a quarter mil every single day – to finish ahead of schedule, with a similar penalty for finishing late. Johnson Brothers beat the deadline by more than two months, earning the maximum bonus of $15 million.

That’s some kind of incentive to get this city back on the move. Even if it is less than a quarter of Russell Wilson’s $65 million signing bonus last year. But that’s football, right? This is just – you know – highway construction.

A manager for the construction company told AL.com’s Anna Beahm his crew broke the world speed record for building such a bridge. But alas, Guinness does not seem to have a comparable category. So we are left to believe it, or not.

But record or no, the company does have 15 million reasons to be proud. The manager assured Beahm there were no corners cut, that the fast bridge was safe and thoroughly inspected and ready to stand the strain of Alabama’s busiest segment of highway.

It better. Because if that thing collapses I’m telling you now I’ll take back this apology. I will.

The rest of the mess – potholes on roads beneath the interstate the size of Des Moines, damage caused by trucks or cranes or traffic of unusual size (TOUS), the aftermath of pell-mell construction – is to be repaired by ALDOT by next year.

We’ll see how that goes without a $250,000-a-day incentive to speed things up.

It does feel strange. But in truth it is remarkable to look at a massive project developed and coordinated by the state, a project that struck fear and loathing into all Birmingham commuting hearts, and to realize the experience was better, better by far, than we expected it to be.

Then again, that’s the way government is supposed to work.

John Archibald, believe it or not a Pulitzer Prize winner, is a columnist for Reckon by AL.com. His column appears in The Birmingham News, the Huntsville Times, the Mobile Register and AL.com. Write him at jarchibald@al.com.