After three delays - one lasting three months, the second four days and the third, a mere 10 minutes - the Atlantic City Expressway Connector finally opened Tuesday.

Trailing a state police escort, a string of vehicles entered the 2.3-mile tunnel roadway at 12:10 p.m. Tuesday bound for the Marina District casinos, to Brigantine or nowhere in particular. After a five-year odyssey fraught with lawsuits, angry opponents and technological snafus, the $330 million roadway fully opened to the public with little fanfare. But not without another potential glitch.

Traffic backed up bumper-to-bumper onto the connector near the base of the Brigantine Bridge, with a line of motorists trying to cross under the bridge to Harrah's. The concern is that the logjam - partly because of converging lanes from two directions - will worsen over the weekend.

Rich Fischer, manager for Parsons-Brinckerhoff, the Princeton-based company that oversaw the construction, said his team will evaluate the traffic patterns over the next several days to see what can be done to improve the flow. `` We'll see what makes sense,'' he said. ``But there's no design flaws.''

Fischer said the congestion may be the result of a stop sign at the end of the jughandle across the street from Harrah's. One possible solution would be to eliminate the stop sign to allow traffic to flow freely.

The new wrinkle didn't sit well with Harrah's. General manager Dave Jonas said police may need to direct traffic during peak periods. ``It's not going to work. We have to widen the road as you come into our building,'' he said.

The congestion did little to dampen the enthusiasm of Patty Angjelo of Galloway Township. She and her family were second in line to enter the roadway.

``This is historical. It's something new to experience. Now Atlantic City is upgraded,'' said Angjelo, who packed her two children, Aaron, 10, and Amanda, 9, her brother, Ed Jones, and his wife into a 1998 Dodge Ram for the drive.

Angjelo spent more than three hours waiting for the chance to be among the first to enter the tunnel Friday night. But the South Jersey Transportation Authority, which owns the tunnel, refused to open the tunnel because of a communication problem with the Atlantic City Fire Department. Signals received by the tunnel's electronic monitoring equipment could not be converted into a mode that the fire department could read. It's comparable to having two people speak different languages without a a a a translator, Fischer explained.

Had the city completed the conversion of its communication system to the tunnel's state-of-the-art 800 megahertz radio frequency, the issue never would have surfaced, said James Crawford, executive director of the SJTA.

For Angjelo, the delay was worth it. ``It's better to make sure it's safe when you go through the tunnel,'' she said.

But the delay proved an embarrassing end to a day of pomp and ceremony on Friday to celebrate the opening after 30 months of construction.

``I'll take the blame for whatever blame there is," said Crawford. "They said we should have ordered the parts we needed days before (the opening). Maybe we should have. But anyone could rush to judgment.''

First proposed by casino magnate Stephen A. Wynn as a condition for his agreement to build a $1 billion casino resort in the marina district, the connector project drew opposition from residents of the city's Westside section. They argued against the demolition of nine homes in the middle-class neighborhood and went to court in an effort to stop construction. Donald Trump filed a series of lawsuits, claiming the connector was a private drive to Wynn's casino.

The lawsuits stalled the project. Residents also complained about lax monitoring of noise and pollution during construction. ``After all this, it's good to see it finally happen,'' Crawford said.

The SJTA also faces complaints about traffic delays because railroad tracks cross the roadway just beyond the ramps to and from the expressway. Every day, 28 trains on the Atlantic City rail line enter or leave the adjacent station. Each time a train passes, traffic stops for at least 60 to 90 seconds.

Merrill Kelem, an Atlantic City police officer, was among the first forced to stop at the rail crossing. The gate opened and closed in less than two minutes without any impact on traffic.

``Not even two minutes. A normal traffic light,'' he said.