Virginia State Route 110 (SR 110) is a 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 ...

in the U.S. state of

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 ...

. Known as Richmond Highway (formerly Jefferson Davis Highway), the state highway runs from

U.S. Route 1 U.S. Route 1 or U.S. Highway 1 (US 1) is a major north–south United States Numbered Highway that serves the East Coast of the United States. It runs from Key West, Florida, north to Fort Kent, Maine, at the Canadian border, making i ...

(US 1) and Interstate 395 (I-395) in Crystal City north to

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 ...

in Rosslyn within

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 ...

. SR 110 is a four- to six-lane

freeway 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 ...

(with the exception of one

at-grade intersection An intersection or an at-grade junction is a junction where two or more roads converge, diverge, meet or cross at the same height, as opposed to an interchange, which uses bridges or tunnels to separate different roads. Major intersections a ...

and a few driveways) that parallels 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 ...

, providing a connection between several of Arlington's

urban village In urban planning and design, an urban village is an urban development typically characterized by medium-density housing, mixed use zoning, good public transit and an emphasis on pedestrianization and public space. Contemporary urban village id ...

s. The state highway also provides access to

the Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase ''The Pentagon'' is often used as a metony ...

, which is the headquarters of the

United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secu ...

, the grounds of

Arlington National Cemetery Arlington National Cemetery is one of two national cemeteries run by the United States Army. Nearly 400,000 people are buried in its 639 acres (259 ha) in Arlington, Virginia. There are about 30 funerals conducted on weekdays and 7 held on Sa ...

, and SR 27, an east–west freeway between the Pentagon and the cemetery. SR 110 is a part of the National Highway System for its entire length. SR 110 is a part of the

Pentagon road network The Pentagon road network is a system of highways, mostly freeways, built by the United States federal government in the early 1940s to serve the Pentagon in northern Virginia. The roads, transferred to the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1964, are ...

, a network of freeways and surface roads built concurrent with the construction of the Pentagon in the early 1940s. The state highway received its numerical designation in 1964 when maintenance responsibility was transferred to 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 ...

. SR 110's most significant changes in routing were relocation of the highway in Rosslyn to tie into I-66 in the 1980s and relocation of the freeway at the Pentagon to provide a larger security buffer for the building after the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

. The highway is sometimes closed for large events held at or around the Pentagon, including the

Marine Corps Marathon The Marine Corps Marathon (MCM) is an annual marathon held in Washington, D.C. and Arlington, Virginia. The mission of the MCM is to promote physical fitness, generate community goodwill, and showcase the organizational skills of the United State ...

. In 2019, SR 110 was renamed to Richmond Highway.

Route description

SR 110 begins at a partial interchange with US 1 (the southern continuation of the Richmond Highway) in Crystal City where US 1 joins I-395 to cross the 14th Street Bridge into Washington; the interchange allows access to and from US 1 in the direction of Alexandria. Immediately to the north, the state highway has a partial interchange with I-395 ( Henry G. Shirley Memorial Highway) that allows access from southbound SR 110 to northbound I-395 and US 1 and from southbound I-395 to northbound SR 110. The southbound exit ramp also includes a ramp for Army–Navy Drive, one of the main streets of

Pentagon City Pentagon City is an unincorporated neighborhood (also called an "urban village") located in the southeast portion of Arlington County, Virginia, near The Pentagon and Arlington National Cemetery. Location Pentagon City is located less than a mil ...

. North of I-395, SR 110 heads north with six lanes immediately to the east of the Pentagon reservation. The southbound freeway has ramps to and from the Pentagon South Parking area, which serves as the main and visitor entrance to the Department of Defense headquarters. SR 110 passes under a pair of pedestrian bridges from Pentagon parking areas on between Boundary Channel Drive, which parallels the freeway, and the Boundary Channel's Pentagon Lagoon. SR 110 has a southbound exit to and entrance from the Pentagon Mall Terrace and River Terrace areas before the highway leaves the vicinity of the Pentagon by passing under SR 27 (Washington Boulevard). The partial interchange between the highways allows access from eastbound SR 27 to northbound SR 110 and from southbound SR 110 to westbound SR 27, which leads to southbound I-395 and SR 244 (Columbia Pike). North of SR 27, the freeway passes between the

Washington Metro The Washington Metro (or simply Metro), formally the Metrorail,Google Books search/preview

's Blue Line on the east and the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery to the west. SR 110 has a northbound exit to and southbound entrance from Memorial Drive, which is the main entrance to the national cemetery and also leads to the

Arlington Memorial Bridge The Arlington Memorial Bridge is a Neoclassical masonry, steel, and stone arch bridge with a central bascule (or drawbridge) that crosses the Potomac River at Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. First proposed in 1886, the bridg ...

to Washington and the

George Washington Memorial Parkway The George Washington Memorial Parkway, colloquially the G.W. Parkway, is a parkway that runs along the south bank of the Potomac River from Mount Vernon, Virginia, northwest to McLean, Virginia, and is maintained by the National Park Service ( ...

. SR 110 continues north with four lanes and has its sole at-grade intersection at Marshall Drive, which leads to the Marine Corps War Memorial, also known as the Iwo Jima Memorial, and the

Netherlands Carillon The Netherlands Carillon is a 127-foot (39-m) tall campanile housing a 53-bell carillon located in Arlington County, Virginia. The instrument and tower were given in the 1950s "From the People of the Netherlands to the People of the United Stat ...

. The highway leaves the cemetery for the urban village of Rosslyn, where the highway reaches its northern terminus. SR 110 passes under US 50 with no access then has a northbound exit and southbound entrance for Wilson Boulevard, one of the main streets of Rosslyn. Immediately to the north, the highway ends at a partial interchange with I-66 allowing access to and from the direction of Falls Church. Westbound I-66 leads to

Dulles International Airport Washington Dulles International Airport , typically referred to as Dulles International Airport, Dulles Airport, Washington Dulles, or simply Dulles ( ), is an international airport in the Eastern United States, located in Loudoun County and Fai ...

and

Front Royal Front Royal is the only incorporated town in Warren County, Virginia, United States. The population was 15,011 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Warren County. History The entire Shenandoah Valley including the area to become ...

History

The road was constructed as a part of the Pentagon Road network during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Those roads were transferred to the Virginia Department of Highways on December 17, 1964 and assigned the number SR 110. At this time, the north end was reconfigured to accommodate the construction to the

Theodore Roosevelt Bridge The Theodore Roosevelt Bridge (also known as the Teddy Roosevelt Bridge or the Roosevelt Bridge) is a bridge crossing the Potomac River which connects Washington, D.C., with the Commonwealth of Virginia. The bridge crosses over Theodore Roosevelt ...

in 1964 over the Potomac River and the re-routing of Arlington Ridge Road. As a result, the north end of SR 110 was shifted west toward the prior bridge that carried US 50 over Arlington Ridge Road. SR 110 then proceeded north on the Arlington Ridge Road right-of-way, under the new bridges that carried the approaches to the Roosevelt Bridge reaching Wilson Boulevard. The road extended north to merge with the future I-66 at the Virginia end of the Roosevelt Bridge. Until the 1980s, this extension ended with the exit and entrance ramps to Lee Highway at Lynn Street. However, when I-66 was completed, this stub was extended so that SR 110 had full access to westbound I-66. One block of the historic Arlington Ridge Road was left to act as a frontage road between Wilson Boulevard and 15th Street North. Following the

, SR 110 was closed to trucks and tour buses due to its proximity to the Pentagon. Police checkpoints were staffed around the clock to enforce this restriction. In September 2002, a contract was awarded to reroute SR 110 to increase the standoff distance between vehicles and the Pentagon. The project, called the Pentagon Secure Bypass, was completed in 2004. SR 110 was shifted eastward in a long arc to maintain a buffer distance from the Pentagon and a two-lane bridge to provide access to the Pentagon North parking lot and two pedestrian bridges were built over the new route. These and related security improvements cost $35 million (equivalent to $ in ) and were completed in October 2004. In April 2019, the Arlington County Board voted to rename SR 110 to Richmond Highway. This went into effect in October 2019.

Exit list

References

External links

{{Attached KML, display=title,inline
Virginia Highways Project: VA 110AARoads: VA 110

110 110 may refer to: *110 (number), natural number *AD 110, a year *110 BC, a year *110 film, a cartridge-based film format used in still photography *110 (MBTA bus), Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority bus route *110 (song), 2019 song by Capi ...

State Route 110