PROVIDENCE — Although the East Side bus tunnel reopened after months of renovations on Halloween morning, the atmosphere of the structure — once dark and dingy— is almost cheery.

More lighting, new paint, and repairs to cracks along the walls and ceilings improved both the tunnel’s appearance and structural integrity.

Before the repairs, the tunnel had light fixtures only every few hundred feet, serving more as spotlights for graffiti spray paint on the walls than illumination for the whole tunnel. Alcoves — vestiges from the tunnel’s days serving trolleys — were filled with trash. Stalactites hung from the ceilings, formed by water leaking in through College Hill above.

Construction started in March and was originally scheduled to be completed in September, but additional cracks found in the tunnel’s structure extended the project’s timeline and increased its price tag by several million dollars.

In total, the tunnel repairs cost about $25 million, a mix of federal money and state matches, something local officials said was worth it at a ribbon cutting the morning before the tunnel’s official reopening.

The bus tunnel is “one of the few dedicated rights of way where only [the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority] can go through, and that generates a lot of federal money for us,” the agency’s interim CEO, Christopher Durand, said during the ceremony.

When the tunnel was open before the repairs, RIPTA’s schedule had six different routes making more than 200 trips total through the tunnel daily.

The 110-year-old tunnel was originally created to help the city’s trolleys make their way up the steep gradient of College Hill. In the 1940s, when the trolleys stopped operating, buses started moving through the tunnel.

“We’re hoping that these improvements today will help us have this tunnel for another 100 years to come,” Durand said.

Rep. Gabe Amo, D-R.I., said he recalled going through the tunnel on the 42 line growing up. “It was much darker then, it wasn’t well lit,” he joked.

“People need attainable transit, to be able to get around on RIPTA,” he added. “They need to be able to cross the city and this tunnel makes it possible.”

Speaker of the House Joseph Shekarchi also spoke at the ceremony and commended Durand for his leadership at the agency since taking over earlier this year, but also noted that funding for RIPTA in the next legislative session isn’t guaranteed.

RIPTA narrowly avoided a deficit and service cuts as a result earlier this year, but a projected statewide deficit in 2025 could put buses on the chopping block again.

“This year is going to be even more difficult. There’s always competition for dollars at the Statehouse,” Shekarchi said. “We had a little bit of extra money last year to keep RIPTA fully operational without any service cuts, and we were happy to make that investment. I hope we can make it again this year.”

“Much has been given to you this year,” Shekarchi added, speaking to Durand, “and much is expected of you this year … please continue the good work.”

After the speeches finished and the ribbon was cut, officials and members of the public had the chance to walk through the normally off-limits tunnel.

As people walked through, they discussed how much easier it was to stroll through the slighter gradient of the tunnel than trudge up the sidewalk above. Others speculated how long it would take before someone tried to tag the tunnel’s clean white walls and whether the anti-graffiti paint would work.

Rhode Island Transit Riders co-coordinator Patricia Raub said she was happy to see the tunnel in better shape and glad that buses could resume their normal routes and stops — something that had caused disruptions for riders this summer.

“I also have a lot of peace of mind,” she added, “the tunnel isn’t going to fall apart while the bus is in here.”