Virginia State Route 7 (VA 7) is a major primary

state highway A state highway, state road, or state route (and the equivalent provincial highway, provincial road, or provincial route) is usually a road that is either ''numbered'' or ''maintained'' by a sub-national state or province. A road numbered by a ...

and busy commuter route in northern

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. It travels southeast from downtown

Winchester Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...

to SR 400 (Washington Street) in downtown

Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...

. Its route largely parallels those of the

Washington & Old Dominion Trail The Washington and Old Dominion Railroad Regional Park is a linear regional park in Northern Virginia. The park's primary feature is the Washington and Old Dominion Railroad Trail (abbreviated as W&OD Trail), an asphalt-surfaced paved rail trail ...

(W&OD Trail) and the

Potomac River The Potomac River () drains the Mid-Atlantic United States, flowing from the Potomac Highlands into Chesapeake Bay. It is long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map. Retrieved Augus ...

. Between its western terminus and Interstate 395 (I-395), SR 7 is part of the National Highway System. In 1968, the Virginia State Highway Commission designated the road as the "Harry Flood Byrd Highway" between Alexandria and Winchester to commemorate Harry F. Byrd Sr. (1887–1966).

Route description

SR 7 begins downtown in the

independent city An independent city or independent town is a city or town that does not form part of another general-purpose local government entity (such as a province). Historical precursors In the Holy Roman Empire, and to a degree in its successor states ...

of Winchester, as East Piccadilly Street at an intersection with U.S. Route 11 (US 11) and US 522, and it continues through the east end of the city, along North East Lane, National Avenue, and finally Berryville Avenue. SR 7 exits the city into surrounding Frederick County, where its name changes to Berryville Pike and it becomes a four-lane highway. SR 7 continues across

I-81 Interstate 81 (I-81) is a north–south (physically northeast–southwest) Interstate Highway in the eastern part of the United States. Its southern terminus is at I-40 in Dandridge, Tennessee; its northern terminus is on Wellesley Isla ...

and then into

Clarke County Clarke County may refer to: ;Places *One of five counties in the United States: **Clarke County, Alabama **Clarke County, Georgia **Clarke County, Iowa **Clarke County, Mississippi **Clarke County, Virginia Clarke County is a county in the Com ...

. SR 7 enters Clarke County from Frederick County, crossing

Opequon Creek Opequon Creek is an approximately 35 mile U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed August 15, 2011 tributary stream of the Potomac River. It flows into the Potomac northeast of Ma ...

, and continues towards the town of Berryville. Business SR 7 (SR 7 Bus.) splits off just west of Berryville and passes through the town, while the main route bypasses the town to the north. Both routes cross US 340, and SR 7 Bus. rejoins SR 7 just east of the town. SR 7 crosses the

Shenandoah River The Shenandoah River is the principal tributary of the Potomac River, long with two forks approximately long each,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed August 15, 2011 in t ...

and its name changes to the

Harry Flood Byrd Harry Flood Byrd Sr. (June 10, 1887 – October 20, 1966) was an American newspaper publisher, politician, and leader of the Democratic Party in Virginia for four decades as head of a political faction that became known as the Byrd Organization. ...

Highway. SR 7 crosses the

Loudoun Loudoun ( gd, Lughdan) is a parish in East Ayrshire, Scotland and lies between five and ten miles east of Kilmarnock. The parish roughly encompasses the northern half of the Upper-Irvine Valley and borders Galston Parish (which encompasses the ...

–Clarke county line and the

Appalachian Trail The Appalachian Trail (also called the A.T.), is a hiking trail in the Eastern United States, extending almost between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine, and passing through 14 states.Gailey, Chris (2006)"Appalachian Tr ...

at the summit of

Snickers Gap Snickers Gap, originally William's Gap, is a wind gap in the Blue Ridge Mountain on the border of Loudoun County and Clarke County in Virginia. The gap is traversed by Virginia State Route 7. The Appalachian Trail also passes across the gap. B ...

in the

Blue Ridge Mountains The Blue Ridge Mountains are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains range. The mountain range is located in the Eastern United States, and extends 550 miles southwest from southern Pennsylvania through Maryland, West Virgin ...

. SR 7 enters the rural western part of Loudoun County as the Harry Flood Byrd Highway at Snickers Gap, and then it descends out of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It intersects the northern end of the

Snickersville Turnpike The Snicker's Gap Turnpike was a turnpike road in the northern part of the U.S. state of Virginia. Part of it is now maintained as State Route 7, a primary state highway, but the road between Aldie and Bluemont (formerly Snickerville) in Loudo ...

, and then it passes just north of the village of

Bluemont Bluemont is an unincorporated village in Loudoun County, Virginia located at the eastern base of Snickers Gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The village's center is located along Snickersville Turnpike ( Virginia Route 734), west of the incor ...

(formerly Snickersville). Next SR 7 curves just south of

Jefferson County, West Virginia Jefferson County is located in the Shenandoah Valley in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. It is the easternmost county of the U.S. state of West Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 57,701. Its county seat is Charles Town ...

. SR 7 becomes a divided, limited-access highway with a speed limit of just west of the town of Round Hill, where another SR 7 Bus. splits off to serve the towns of Round Hill,

Purcellville Purcellville is a town in Loudoun County, Virginia. The population was 8,929 according to the 2020 Census. Purcellville is the major population center for Western Loudoun and the Loudoun Valley. Many of the older structures remaining in Purcellvil ...

, and

Hamilton Hamilton may refer to: People * Hamilton (name), a common British surname and occasional given name, usually of Scottish origin, including a list of persons with the surname ** The Duke of Hamilton, the premier peer of Scotland ** Lord Hamilt ...

, while the main road runs outside of the towns as a bypass. SR 7 Bus. rejoins the main road at the interchange with SR 9 in Paeonian Springs. SR 7 continues towards the well-developed eastern half of Loudoun County as a four-lane divided highway with some at-grade intersections, and it passes through

Clarke's Gap Clarke's Gap, also known as Clarks Gap, is a pass through Catoctin Mountain west of Leesburg, Virginia. The gap has an elevation of . The gap is not a true wind gap, but rather a man-made railroad cut through a local saddle point between two rid ...

Catoctin Mountain Catoctin Mountain, along with the geologically associated Bull Run Mountains, forms the easternmost mountain ridge of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are in turn a part of the Appalachian Mountains range. The ridge runs northeast–southwest for ...

. Another SR 7 Bus. splits off on the western side of the town of Leesburg, the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is in use in Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, Taiwan, and the United States. The equivalent term shire town is used in the US st ...

of Loudoun County. The main road continues as the Leesburg Bypass, and merges with the bypass of

US 15 U.S. Route 15 (US 15) is a -long United States highway, designated along South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York. The route is signed north–south, from U.S. Route 17 Alternate in Walterboro, South Car ...

around the southern side of Leesburg, while the business route passes through town as Market Street. SR 7 Business intersects with US 15 Business (King Street) by the county

courthouse A courthouse or court house is a building that is home to a local court of law and often the regional county government as well, although this is not the case in some larger cities. The term is common in North America. In most other English-spe ...

in the center of Leesburg. The

Virginia Department of Transportation The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) is the agency of the state government responsible for transportation in the state of Virginia in the United States. VDOT is headquartered at the Virginia Department of Highways Building in downtown ...

(VDOT) has plans to widen the section of SR 7 between SR 9 and East Market Street. However, due to highway budget restrictions, this project was put on hold in June 2008. As of December 2014, construction had begun on the widening of this section of SR 7. In addition to widening Westbound SR 7 from two to three lanes, the median will be modified to limit left turns into and out of Roxbury Hall Road, Leeland Orchard Road, Fort Johnston Road, White Gate Place, and Beechnut Place. In addition to the work on SR 7,

roundabout A roundabout is a type of circular intersection or junction in which road traffic is permitted to flow in one direction around a central island, and priority is typically given to traffic already in the junction.''The New Shorter Oxford En ...

s will be installed at the interchange between SR 7 and SR 9. The southern roundabout will combine the separate intersections of the on and off ramps from SR 7 and Colonial Highway/Dry Mill Road into one. The SR 7 bypass crosses the

just before the US 15 bypass splits off from SR 7 in eastern Leesburg, and then SR 7 Bus. rejoins the main highway near the same location. SR 7 continues on through the eastern half of Leesburg, with six lanes. It then crosses Goose Creek, and passes through

Ashburn __NOTOC__ Ashburn may refer to: Places Canada *Ashburn, Ontario United States *Ashburn, Georgia *Ashburn, Chicago, Illinois, a community area **Ashburn (Metra), a Metra station serving the area * Ashburn, Missouri * Ashburn, Virginia, an unincorpo ...

. SR 7 was rebuilt as a

controlled-access highway A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms i ...

through eastern Loudoun County. To accomplish this,

highway interchange In the field of road transport, an interchange (American English) or a grade-separated junction (British English) is a road junction that uses grade separations to allow for the movement of traffic between two or more roadways or highways, usi ...

s were constructed replacing the ordinary intersections at Belmont Ridge Road, Loudoun County Parkway, Riverside Parkway, and Ashburn Village Boulevard while closing the intersection at Lexington Drive. A new

overpass An overpass (called an overbridge or flyover in the United Kingdom and some other Commonwealth countries) is a bridge, road, railway or similar structure that crosses over another road or railway. An ''overpass'' and ''underpass'' together form ...

was constructed to carry Sycolin Road across SR 7 in Leesburg, which opened to traffic on August 11, 2014. An additional interchange was also opened at Battlefield Parkway in Leesburg on Monday, June 28, 2021. SR 7 continues as a controlled-access freeway and passes by numerous housing subdivisions, businesses, and shopping areas before it reaches an interchange with SR 28, close to the

Fairfax County Fairfax County, officially the County of Fairfax, is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is part of Northern Virginia and borders both the city of Alexandria and Arlington County and forms part of the suburban ring of Washington, D.C. ...

line in Sterling. SR 7 is named Leesburg Pike all the way across Fairfax County, where it is mainly a suburban route. It enters Fairfax County at the interchange with the

Fairfax County Parkway The Fairfax County Parkway, numbered State Route 286 (SR 286, formerly SR 7100), is a primary state highway in the U.S. state of Virginia, acting as an arterial route in Fairfax County with a mix of interchanges and signalized an ...

(SR 286) and Algonkian Parkway. It continues through Fairfax County, passing by subdivisions and strip malls. It passes through Tysons, where it has interchanges with SR 267 (the Dulles Access and Toll Roads) and SR 123 before passing south of the

Tysons Corner Center Tysons Corner Center is a shopping mall in the unincorporated area of Tysons in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States (between McLean and Vienna, Virginia). It opened to the public in 1968, becoming one of the first fully enclosed, climate-contr ...

shopping mall. It then intersects the Capital Beltway (

I-495 Interstate 495 (I-495) is the designation for several Interstate Highways in the United States, all of which are related to Interstate 95, listed from south to north: * The Capital Beltway, a beltway around Washington, D.C., running through Virgin ...

) in

McLean MacLean, also spelt Maclean and McLean, is a Goidelic languages, Gaelic surname Mac Gille Eathain, or, Mac Giolla Eóin in Irish language, Irish Gaelic), Eóin being a Gaelic form of Johannes (John (given name), John). The clan surname is an A ...

and intersects

I-66 Interstate 66 (I-66) is an east–west Interstate Highway in the eastern United States. It runs from an interchange with I-81 near Middletown, Virginia, on its western end to an interchange with U.S. Route 29 (US 29) in Washing ...

a half mile (0.8 km) west of the West Falls Church Metro station. SR 7 then enters the independent city of

Falls Church Falls Church is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 14,658. Falls Church is included in the Washington metropolitan area. Taking its name from The Falls Church, an 18th-century Churc ...

and becomes Broad Street and marks the north/south division for city streets. The road intersects

US 29 U.S. Route 29 (US 29) is a north–south United States highway that runs for from Pensacola, Florida to the western suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland in the Southern United States, connecting the Florida Panhandle to the Baltimore-Washington ...

in the city's center and crosses the W&OD Trail in the city's west end. SR 7 then re-enters Fairfax County as Leesburg Pike and passes through Seven Corners, named for the five roads that intersect, including SR 338 (Hillwood Avenue) and US 50 (Arlington Boulevard), which is

grade separated In civil engineering (more specifically highway engineering), grade separation is a method of aligning a junction of two or more surface transport axes at different heights (grades) so that they will not disrupt the traffic flow on other tra ...

from the rest of the intersection. From there, it travels to Bailey's Crossroads, where it intersects SR 244 (Columbia Pike). SR 7 enters the

City of Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...

from Fairfax County and briefly forms the border between the Alexandria and

Arlington County Arlington County is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The county is situated in Northern Virginia on the southwestern bank of the Potomac River directly across from the District of Columbia, of which it was once a part. The county is ...

, and then intersects

I-395 Interstate 395 may refer to: *Interstate 395 (Connecticut–Massachusetts), a spur from I-95 to Auburn, Massachusetts *Interstate 395 (Delaware), a proposed portion of I-95 in Delaware, when it was under construction *Interstate 395 (Florida), a spu ...

. It continues as King Street through Alexandria, passing by

Alexandria City High School Alexandria City High School (formerly named T. C. Williams High School) is a public high school in the City of Alexandria, Virginia, United States, just outside of Washington, D.C. The school has an enrollment of over 4,100 students. The high sc ...

George Washington Masonic National Memorial The George Washington Masonic National Memorial is a Masonic building and memorial located in Alexandria, Virginia, outside Washington, D.C. It is dedicated to the memory of George Washington, the first President of the United States and a Mason ...

Union Station A union station (also known as a union terminal, a joint station in Europe, and a joint-use station in Japan) is a railway station at which the tracks and facilities are shared by two or more separate railway companies, allowing passengers to ...

(

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

and

Virginia Railway Express Virginia Railway Express (VRE) is a commuter rail service that connects outlying small cities of Northern Virginia to Union Station in Washington, D.C. It operates two lines which run during weekday rush hour only: the Fredericksburg Line from ...

), and the King Street – Old Town Metro station. SR 7 ends at the

intersection In mathematics, the intersection of two or more objects is another object consisting of everything that is contained in all of the objects simultaneously. For example, in Euclidean geometry, when two lines in a plane are not parallel, their i ...

of King Street and SR 400 (Washington Street) in

Old Town Alexandria Old Town Alexandria is one of the original settlements of the city of Alexandria, Virginia and is located just minutes from Washington, D.C. Old Town is situated in the eastern and southeastern area of Alexandria along the Potomac River. Old ...

, one quarter of a mile (0.4 km) west of the Potomac River.

Future

Intersection at Baron Cameron Avenue

On August 19, 2019, a third left-turn lane was added from SR 7 west to Baron Cameron Avenue. This was in place of constructing a partial interchange at the intersection, for which SR 7 east lanes would travel under Baron Cameron Avenue; the project was never started, as VDOT failed to allocate sufficient funding for the project and lack of competition led to higher than forecasted bids for the Route 7 widening.

Fairfax County widening project

VDOT is currently working on widening SR 7 from four to six lanes and adding shared-use paths along SR 7 between Reston Avenue and Jarrett Valley Drive in Fairfax County. The project is expected to cost $313.9 million and should be completed by mid-2024.

Renaming the highway in Loudoun County

The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors voted to rename the section of SR 7 within Loudoun County from Harry Byrd Highway to Leesburg Pike on December 7, 2021. This is in an effort to restore historical names and remove segregationist and Confederate symbols throughout the county.

Major intersections

Special routes

Berryville business route

State Route 7 Business (SR 7 Bus.) is a

business route A business route (or business loop, business spur, or city route) in the United States is a short special route connected to a ''parent'' numbered highway at its beginning, then routed through the central business district of a nearby city or ...

in the U.S. state of

. It follows Main Street through downtown Berryville.

Purcellville business route

State Route 7 Business (SR 7 Bus.) is a

in the U.S. state of

. It runs from SR 7 just west of Round Hill to SR 9 just west of Leesburg, where the roadway continues east and south as SR 699. The route provides access from the main route, SR 7, to

. The route has multiple names along its length including Loudoun Street, Main Street, and Colonial Highway. The route was formed in two segments. The first one was formed in 1980, and the second one was formed in 1987. The route's western end is at its parent route, SR 7. It then intersects New Cut Road and Main Street, both part of SR 719. It meets SR 7 once again at a

diamond interchange A diamond interchange is a common type of road junction, used where a controlled-access highway crosses a minor road. Design The freeway itself is grade-separated from the minor road, one crossing the other over a bridge. Approaching the ...

. After that, the route meets State Route 287 (SR 287) at a

. The route's eastern end is at State Route 9 (SR 9) (Charles Town Pike), where it goes east and south as SR 699 (Dry Mill Rd.). The first segment of the route was commissioned in 1980 between SR 287 and SR 9. The second segment of the route was commissioned in 1987 between SR 287 and SR 7. These segments were both designated along the former alignment of its parent route, SR 7.

Leesburg business route

State Route 7 Business (SR 7 Bus.) is a

in the U.S. state of

. It follows Market Street through downtown Leesburg. In downtown Leesburg, SR 7 Bus. intersects with US 15 Bus.

References

External links

SR 7 at The Virginia Highways Project
{{Transit in NOVA 007 State Route 007 State Route 007 State Route 007 State Route 007 State Route 007 State Route 007 State Route 007 State Route 007