Virginia State Route 161

I-95 in southern Richmond
Major intersections	US 1 / US 301 in Richmond US 360 in Richmond US 60 in Richmond SR 195 Toll in Richmond US 33 / US 250 in Richmond I-95 in Richmond
North end	US 1 near Lakeside
Location
Country	United States
State	Virginia
Highway system
Virginia Routes Interstate US Primary Secondary Byways History HOT lanes
← SR 162

State Route 161 is a primary

.

For a portion of its history, the road served as an early western highway bypass of the downtown area of the City of Richmond through portions of Chesterfield and Henrico counties. Known during that period as the area's "Belt Boulevard", the name is still applied to some streets along the former bypass routing. SR 161 now located entirely in the City of Richmond and Henrico County.

Route description

Southside Richmond

SR 161 begins at a partial cloverleaf interchange from I-95 exit 69 to an intersection with Walmsley Boulevard and Commerce Road. The state highway curves right onto Commerce Road then turning left at Bells Road near

. The state route curves through the Phillip Morris area then crosses over 's Bellwood Subdivision to an intersection with , and CSX's Rivanna Subdivision before reaching the toll plaza.

Northside Richmond

SR 161 crosses through the toll plaza and curves around

Dogwood Dell

on the left and through the south side of William Byrd Park as Park Drive. SR 161 turns right onto a four-lane divided Blanton Avenue. It then passes an intersection with Douglasdale Road which has access to .

Henrico County

SR 161 enters Henrico County as a four-lane divided highway (Lakeside Avenue) through a local business area to its intersection with Dumbarton Road. The highway heads north through another residential zone and some restaurants toward the intersection with the eastern terminus of

(Brook Road).

History

This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

An early highway bypass of Richmond

In the pre-World War II era, the original

was often highly congested with Florida-New York and other east coast travelers. In the city, the path of US 1/301 passed miles of tourist homes along Jefferson Davis Highway south of the river and Chamberlayne Avenue north of the river.

By 1934, a combination of roads known collectively as the "Belt Boulevard" formed a western bypass of Richmond's most congested areas along the US 1/301 corridor, crossing the

built in 1925. The Belt Boulevard offered an alternative to downtown Richmond's traffic, with ends at US 1 south and north of the city limits in Chesterfield and Henrico counties, respectively, at that time. (Part of the route south of the James River was annexed from Chesterfield County in 1944; the remainder in 1970, so the road in that area is now entirely in Richmond).

Route description

The route began at U.S. Routes 1 and 301 at Terminal Avenue, a location known as "Stop 9" on the Richmond-Petersburg Interurban Electric Railway. A large neon sign and arrow at the intersection of Terminal Avenue and Jefferson Davis Highway on the southwest corner urged northbound motorists to consider the bypass. The sign survived into the 1970s.

It followed Terminal Avenue northwesterly in Chesterfield County to a short road section actually named Belt Boulevard, which it followed about a mile, meeting

about a mile further north. In the late 1940s, an overpass for U.S. 60 and a partial cloverleaf interchange was built at this location.

About 1/2 mile north of U.S. 60, the road crossed the original Belt Line railroad tracks, a routing which was itself bypassed by a newer alignment of the belt line by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad at the time Broad Street Station was opened around 1917.

After crossing the railroad, Belt Boulevard connected with

community and the Forest Hill Avenue commercial corridor to reach the high bluffs along the south side of the James River.

At this location, Belt Boulevard crossed the

.

The road followed Hermitage Road north, passing another monument for (and the tomb of) Confederate General

(an electric interurban) to end at an intersection with Brook Road in Henrico County north of Richmond.

Route numbering history

The northern portion of the Belt Boulevard route in Richmond from Boulevard and its intersections with Main and Cary Streets north to U.S. Route 1 in Henrico County was originally numbered as Virginia State Route 432. In 1933, it was renumbered as Virginia State Route 161. The SR-161 route numbering was assigned south of

.

Traffic circles

Although promoted as a bypass of heavy traffic near downtown Richmond, the Belt Boulevard route included two of the Richmond area's busier

traffic circles

.

• McGuire Circle was located at the intersection of Hull Street Road (U.S. Route 360) in Chesterfield County, where major shopping centers were developed in the post World War II period, notably Southside Plaza Shopping Center, opened in 1958. McGuire Circle has two lanes in the center and heavy through truck traffic on U.S. Route 360, leading to some spectacular and deadly accidents, with overturned tractor-trailer rigs not uncommon.
• Westwood Circle was located at the five-pointed junction of north stub end of "the Boulevard", and the through streets of Hermitage Road and Westwood Avenue. Although also heavily congested, this circle did not have the through truck traffic of McGuire Circle and was less notorious for serious collisions.

1958: replaced as a bypass, a new suburban connector

The Belt Boulevard as a bypass of Richmond was largely replaced by the new

which opened in 1958. However, a portion of the southern end of SR 161 retains the Belt Boulevard name, and it is in current use there.

A major intersection was at U.S. Route 360, and after a mile of residential housing, another at U.S. Route 60 (

course, and two bowling alleys. In a short time, the equivalent of a small town business district materialized, even as the road changed from a through traffic bypass to a suburban connector street.

Post-1970 changes, current routing

On January 1, 1970, the City of Richmond annexed most of the southern portion, which had been in Chesterfield County. Although it formerly followed Terminal Avenue, in the 1990s, the VA-161 routing was relocated and extended along newly rebuilt sections of Belt Boulevard and Bells Road, which the route now follows across Jefferson Davis Highway (US 1/301) to meet Interstate 95 (at exit 69).

Both traffic circles had been replaced by traffic signals by the mid-1970s. The area near the larger is still known locally as McGuire Circle, even though the circle has been gone for over 30 years. In the 1980s, the railroad tracks and grade crossing south of Westover Hills were removed. Two railroad grade crossings remain on the newer Bells Road portion of SR-161, on a spur line (the former ACL main line into

near the major Phillip Morris complex in South Richmond.

Major intersections

County	Location	mi[1]	km	Destinations	Notes
I-95 – Richmond, Petersburg		I-95 exit 69; southern terminus
				Commerce Road	former SR 336 south
				Commerce Road	former SR 336 north
		1.38	2.22	US 1 / US 301 (Jefferson Davis Highway)
		3.01	4.84	Hopkins Road	interchange
		3.69	5.94	SR 10 east (Broad Rock Boulevard)	South end of SR 10 overlap
		4.12	6.63	SR 10 west (Broad Rock Road)	North end of SR 10 overlap
		4.42	7.11	US 360 (Hull Street Road)
		5.29	8.51	US 60	interchange
				Forest Hill Avenue	former SR 417
		6.82	10.98	Boulevard Bridge over the James River (toll bridge)
				I-95	interchange
		8.54	13.74	SR 147 east (West Cary Street)
				SR 147 west (West Main Street)
				SR 315 west	Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
		8.91	14.34	SR 6 west (Kensington Avenue)	Eastern terminus of SR 6
				SR 418 west; no left turns in any direction
		9.33	15.02	US 33 / US 250 (West Broad Street)
		10.43	16.79	I-95	I-95 exit 78
		11.07	17.82	SR 197 (Laburnum Avenue)
		11.82	19.02	I-64	I-95 exit 80
Henrico	Lakeside	13.10	21.08	SR 356 west (Hilliard Road)
		13.84	22.27	US 1 (Brook Road)	Northern terminus
1.000 mi = 1.609 km; 1.000 km = 0.621 mi       Concurrency terminus       Incomplete access        Tolled

References

External links

• Virginia Highways Project: VA 161

<  SR 431

District 4 State Routes 1928–1933

SR 433  >