DETROIT - After three years of work, the gargantuan effort to install 65,000 LED streetlights across the city was completed Thursday when the final stretch of lights to be replaced were turned on near the intersection of Riopelle and Atwater streets, just outside of downtown.

Knocking out the prior, often-out-of-service system that plagued Detroit's streets for a generation was the handiwork of the Public Lighting Authority, which was created in 2013 to design and implement the new lighting network.

The authority, with the backing of Mayor Mike Duggan, saw to the completion of the project one year ahead of its original schedule, also managing to fly in under the allotted budget.

Gathered near the final section of streetlights to be lit, lighting authority officials, Duggan and a White House official spoke Thursday evening about the effort to re-light the streets of Detroit, celebrating the achievement that started with the city's darkest ZIP codes on the far east and far west sides in February 2014.

"Three years ago, when I took on the role of chair (of the PLA), nobody actually believed that Detroit's streetlights would ever really be functioning," Dr. Lorna Thomas said. "But guess what? Today, here we are.

"Many people thought what we were trying to do was impossible, because it had never been done. But we have done it. This is an example of how government should work."

Prior to the start of work to address the city's broken system of some 88,000 lights, 40 percent of Detroit's streetlights were not functioning, in some cases leaving entire neighborhoods in the dark.

"I can't imagine a symbolic and real step forward that we're celebrating today that could be more important than bringing light back to every street, every neighborhood in this city," said Shaun Donovan, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.

"You're now an example to the rest of the country. Now others are following you and we're trying to help them with your example. So you are a beacon to the world, to the rest of this country and the world."

In detailing how the project came to fruition, Duggan recalled sitting down with advisors from DTE Energy -- who helped oversee the project -- telling them: "'I want to see what is the national standard for lighting neighborhoods and main streets. What's the national standard for lighting?

"'Detroiters are not going to get a second-class lighting system. Give us the national standard.'"

The mayor got his wish, as the switch to light the final streetlights to be replaced was flipped, and Detroit officially became the largest city in America to be 100-percent lit with LED lighting.

"After three years, the condition of the streetlights is no longer a symbol of decay in the city of Detroit," Duggan said. "The fact that this city is lit from one end to the other is a sign of hope."

Detroit's new streetlights are brighter and more energy efficient than the high-pressure sodium lights that they replaced. The PLA also says the new lights have a considerably longer lifespan than their predecessors, and that a maintenance program has been instituted to fix lights that malfunction within three to five days of reported outages.

Throughout 2015, crews worked strategically to place more than 42,000 neighborhood streetlights on blocks with multiple occupied homes, while eschewing abandoned areas, making sure to place lights at every corner and in the middle of every neighborhood block more than 300 feet long.

Lights along major roads comprised a majority of the work completed this year, including the final lights installed near Riopelle and Atwater that were lit Thursday.

The PLA financed the construction with $60 million interim financing bonds sold in December 2013, as well as long-term, fixed rate financing of $185 million that was completed in June 2014. Both sets of bonds are being paid off through an annual allocation of $12.5 million from the city's utility user tax.

"Our lights have been out for a long time," Bryan Ferguson, an east side resident who attended Thursday's celebration, said. "I know because I'm part of the Schoolcraft Improvement Association, and I have walked 15 streets, 45 blocks and probably between 2,000 households in the dark.

"... I don't have to walk my streets in the dark anymore."