Virginia/Major roads/Main

For further information, see Road names/USA, Road types/USA and Virginia/Resources.

In Virginia, outside cities and major towns (and a couple of urban counties), nearly every road and street is designated as a "state highway" and assigned a number for VDOT inventory purposes. However, for Waze routing, we only treat primary state highways as "numbered state highways" for purposes of applying the road type guidelines. Highways marked with primary route numbers must be designated as at least "Minor Highway" in Waze, unless the road's functional classification requires a higher designation. For Virginia secondary highways, rely on the road's functional classification only.

Primary state highways have numbers in the range of 2 to 599 (and, as exceptions, 785, 895), displayed in a route marker using a shield design. All other numbers from 600 up are secondary highways; if these roads have route markers (many do not), they use a circle design instead of a shield. See Virginia DOT Route Index Resources for more info.

Our naming convention is SR-### for primary routes (SR-2 - SR-599, SR-785 and SR-895) and VA-### for secondary routes (VA-600+). Since this update is fairly new (1/24/2015), your first priority should be making sure that ramps and roads with the route name as their primary name are correct. Correcting alt names is a secondary priority.

NOTE: The naming standard is currently on hold. Do not spend time changing current roads over to the new standard. For new roads, follow the standard but be aware that it may need to change in the future based on recent developments.

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  Primary route marker

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  Secondary route marker

Locking standard

Actual locks used may be more or less than values in the table below, depending on area circumstance

   Please consult the RC, SM, or appropriate AM for guidance

Virginia Locking Rank Standard Guideline

Segment Type	Urban	Rural
Freeway	5
Ramp	Highest rank of connected segment
Major Highway	4	3
Minor Highway	3	2
Primary Street	2	1
Street	1
• • • • Ferry • • • •	5
|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-| Railroad |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|	2