Motorists wait their turn to enter the newly completed 210 freeway in Rialto, Calif. The road, a little more than seven miles long, is likely to be the last new highway for many years in the state because of funding and space constraints.

Rialto, Calif. ? The last stretch of brand-new freeway that California is likely to see for years opened Tuesday with motorists vying for position and the inevitable traffic jam.

Commuters clogged onramps to be among the first to burn rubber on State Route 210, a 7 1/4-mile ribbon completing a freeway that over decades pushed 80 miles east from Los Angeles through foothill towns along the San Gabriel Mountains. It now ties into cities and interstates in the growing region known as the Inland Empire.

As opening time approached, Jim Gray eased his aqua green 1997 Mustang into position while reporters swarmed and news helicopters thrummed overhead. He jockeyed for position with two women in a gray SUV who weren’t shy about honking, and he wound up second in line.

Suddenly, the cones were gone, and Gray floored it. Music blaring, top down, he gunned past the SUV – which had stopped for a photo opportunity – and sped onto the freeway at 70 mph.

As his car glided under the first overpass, Gray honked the horn, gave a passenger a high-five and promptly started calling friends and relatives on his cell phone.

“Dude, watch the news tonight! Turn on the TV now! I’m the first on the freeway,” he shouted, as a huge motorcycle passed him on the left.

Officials say the freeway, conceived in 1948, will likely be one of the last brand-new freeways to open for decades in California because of funding shortfalls and a lack of places to lay new pavement.

“We can go onto freeways and we can widen and modify and add lanes, but those freeways already exist,” said Shelli Lombardo, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Transportation. “This is a brand-new freeway, and you’re not going to see another one of those for a substantial number of years in California.”