Lynchburg Expressway
The Lynchburg Expressway is a freeway in Lynchburg, Virginia, United States. It carries portions of
- U.S. Route 29 Business
- U.S. Route 501
This expressway is a four-lane, divided highway with a speed limit of 55 miles per hour for its entirety (except at its northwestern terminus, where the speed limit is 45).
The route has eleven interchanges, numbered 1-11, along with an at-grade intersection and right-in/right-out (RIRO) intersection at its northwestern terminus.
Route Description
Coming into the city from the northeast, on southbound Business U.S. Route 29, the expressway crosses the James River via the Carter Glass Memorial Bridge. Almost immediately after this bridge, the expressway is overpassed by Main St. and connects to it via the Exit 1 ramps, providing full access to and from downtown and the riverfront. The road then bends southward to pass underneath Grace St., the destination of Exit 2. The exit 2 ramps heading southward form the southern end of Miller St, which continues for two blocks and then ends at Grace St. The northbound ramps connect to Robins Road, a left turn onto which is required to access Grace St.
After this, the expressway again curves to the southeast, and connects to Kemper St. (which carries U.S. Route 221, Business U.S. Route 460, and Business U.S. Route 501), with full access via Exit 3, a four-ramp partial cloverleaf/semi-folded diamond interchange. The highway then curves to the south for a rapid series of three interchanges. Exit 4 connects to Stadium Road, however, this exit only connects to the southbound route. Exit 5 connects with full access to James St. and northern Carroll Ave., both of which connect to Stadium Rd., thus providing the connections missing from Exit 4. Exit 6 has nearly no access, however, since the only ramp is from the northbound expressway to southeastern Carroll Ave.
After these tightly-knit interchanges, the expressway connects to the northwestern terminus of Odd Fellows Road with full access via a trumpet interchange.
Exit 8 is a cloverleaf interchange with Candlers Mountain Road (U.S. Route 501 and Virginia State Route 128). This is where Business U.S. Route 29 (the highway carried by the expressway north of here) picks up U.S. 501 for a "wrong-way" concurrency. This interchange lacks a connection from westbound Route 128 to the southbound expressway, a connection which is made up for in Exit 9, the expressway's interchange with Wards Road. This interchange lacks access from southbound Wards Road onto northbound Business Route 29 / southbound U.S. 501 (the northbound expressway). This interchange is also where Business Route 29 leaves the expressway for Wards Road, where it eventually meets back up with mainline U.S. 29. This leaves U.S. 501 as the expressway's only designation.
After Business 29 leaves the expressway, the expressway (now Route 501) curves to the northwest, after which it has a cloverleaf interchange (Exit 10) with Timberlake Road / Fort Avenue (Business U.S. Route 460). Exit 11 soon follows, with a diamond interchange connecting the now-northbound expressway to Graves Mill Road, an important corridor connecting the City of Lynchburg with the Forest suburb. After this, the southbound expressway has a right-in/right-out intersection with Breezewood Drive, the speed limit drops to 45, and the expressway ends at an at-grade, signalized intersection with Old Forest Road and Lakeside Drive (U.S. Route 221), having made nearly a complete semicircle around the city.