A miserable, meandering waterfront route once known as Arthur Avenue has been transformed into a modern, highly efficient — and busy — roadway.

Andy McDonough (left), the Port’s industrial and economic development director, was a key player over many years in the replacing of old Arthur Avenue. Davis Helberg, who retired as port director in 2003, said there’s no political significance to the direction of the arrow near his name.

Old Arthur Avenue, in the words of Jim Sharrow, the Port’s facilities manager, was little more than a cow path, rutted and dusty in dry weather and muddy — or just plain under water — in wet weather.

The old road was recognized as “one of the worst in the state,” Mr. Sharrow said, and over the years caused considerable damage and delay to trucks and cars going to or from the dock properties it was intended to serve.

The new street, which begins just scant yards from the front door of the Duluth Seaway Port Authority offices, stretches less than a mile but has made a huge difference for the businesses that lie along or near its newly laid asphalt. It parallels and also connects with Garfield Avenue, the only street that runs through the heart of Duluth’s primary working waterfront, and eliminates longtime public safety concerns by providing an alternative route for emergency vehicles.

The $5.8 million project — part of it from the Port and part from the city of Duluth — also included rail reconstruction which now supports unit trains, or parts of unit trains. Both the Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Canadian Pacific railroads benefit from the improvements, as do other businesses along the route.

No longer do drivers for Azcon Corp., for example, have to worry about getting stuck at a rail crossing. Before the improvements, half-hour waits were not uncommon. But now, said Mr. Sharrow, “drivers have two choices in and out.”

The new street opened in late August, “And boy are we using it,” said Mr. Sharrow.

Other businesses taking advantage of the new street are Northland Bituminous, Inc.; AGP Grain Limited; CP Rail; Azcon Corporation and Lake Superior Warehousing. The Port and other regional transportation planners identified the need for a new, extended street in the 1980s, but it took years to assemble the funding while also resolving complex engineering and land ownership issues.

The final pieces came together within a year of Davis Helberg’s retirement in 2003, and the Port’s board of commissioners decided to name the street for the longtime port director.

“It’s a wonderful honor, and I’m deeply grateful,” said Mr. Helberg. “It’s clear that the main street on Rice’s Point was named for President James A. Garfield and, when he was assassinated in 1881, the secondary street was named for his successor, Chester A. Arthur. So it took more than a century for Mr. Arthur’s road to get paved, and who knows, another 100 years or so and maybe we’ll need a sidewalk.”