Skip to main content

Key airport link open in US

The new Richmond Airport connector link road is now open to traffic. The link provides a direct connection from the Pocahontas 895 highway to Richmond International Airport and cuts journey time on this route. This 2.5km road is an extension of the Pocahontas 895 highway and links directly to Airport Drive at Charles City Road. The new road can save drivers around 10 minutes or more on a trip to the airport, especially those coming from Chesterfield County and the Tri-Cities area. Customers using the Airpor
May 17, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
The new Richmond Airport connector link road is now open to traffic. The link provides a direct connection from the Pocahontas 895 highway to Richmond International Airport and cuts journey time on this route.

This 2.5km road is an extension of the Pocahontas 895 highway and links directly to Airport Drive at Charles City Road. The new road can save drivers around 10 minutes or more on a trip to the airport, especially those coming from Chesterfield County and the Tri-Cities area.

Customers using the Airport Connector pay the toll at the Pocahontas 895 Main Plaza, including those traveling to and from Chesterfield County. The do not pay again at the Airport Connector ramps. Only customers using the Airport Connector and traveling between the airport and Interstate 295 will pay $1.25 at the ramp linking the connector to Pocahontas 895. This toll will be collected electronically, with payment made by E-ZPass or Visa/Mastercard credit or debit cards.

600 Transurban operates and maintains Pocahontas 895 and financed and constructed the Airport Connector Road as part of a public-private partnership with 1747 Virginia Department of Transportation established in 2006. The project cost close to US$50 million but did not require funding from Virginia taxpayers and was supported through a loan provided by the US Federal Government and backed by Transurban.

The link was needed to handle increasing traffic volumes. Over the last decade, Richmond International Airport has been one of the fastest-growing airports in the US. Construction of the new road, designed and built by American Infrastructure, was completed approximately two months early. The project, which began construction in early 2009, boasted more than 665 days without a lost-time accident, the entire two-year length of the project.

Pocahontas 895 is a 14km toll road with an elevated bridge crossing the James River. It is located southeast of Richmond, Virginia, and links Interstate 95 at Chippenham Parkway (Route 150) with Interstate 295 to create a southeastern bypass of the city. It is the only crossing of the James River for 10km in either direction. The new road features sophisticated electronic tolling technology, which helps speed vehicle flow through the tolling area.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Improving urban traffic control in Atlanta
    January 27, 2012
    Hugh Colton, Georgia DOT details move to improve urban traffic control in the Atlanta area. With a significant proportion of traffic using freeways and toll-ways, along with a significant investment in roadway infrastructure, urban arterials are often the poor relation when it comes to ITS investment. Hitherto the primary means of Urban Traffic Control (UTC) has been the ubiquitous traffic signal. Many traffic signals still operate in a standalone mode and traffic detection is often broken, leaving the sign
  • SANRAL switches on automated tolling
    December 11, 2015
    The South African National Roads Agency (SANRAL) reached a major milestone when it switched on the automated payment option at several of its toll plazas, meaning that road users with electronic tags no longer have to stop to pay tolls manually with cash or credit cards. Automated payment is carried out automatically through a tag fitted to the vehicle to identify the account holder, debit their toll account with the appropriate toll fees and automatically open the toll boom, without the need to stop and
  • Interoperability: towards the new frontier
    October 22, 2018
    After six years of intensive research, testing and negotiation, the US tolling industry is well on its way to groundbreaking results in the effort to establish regional - and eventually national - toll interoperability, says IBTTA’s Bill Cramer. Interoperability has been a high priority on the US tolling industry’s agenda for more than a decade. But several factors made it a uniquely complex issue to resolve - including the number of agencies involved, the significant investments those agencies had already
  • New Port Mann Bridge opens to eight lanes of traffic
    December 6, 2012
    Canada’s British Columbia (BC) government is delivering on its commitment to reduce congestion along the province’s busiest transportation corridor, with the opening of the new Port Mann Bridge to eight lanes of traffic, which cuts commute times and allows for the first regular transit service across the bridge in twenty-five years. This is the largest transportation project in BC history and completes the first and largest phase of the Port Mann/Highway 1 Improvement Project, which includes highway widenin