What does VDOT consider a safe entrance?
VDOT judges an entrance by its class. A private entrance, serving up to two homes, cannot be denied on the basis of sight distance; VDOT places it where the frontage offers the best possible sight distance. Commercial and low volume commercial entrances must meet a minimum sight distance. Design figures come from VDOT's Road Design Manual, and the terms written into the permit govern.
A driveway for one or two homes is placed, not refused, on sight distance
The installation of a private entrance cannot be denied on the basis of sight distance. VDOT will review the property owner's highway frontage and determine a useable location for the private entrance with the best possible sight distance.
VDOT Road Design Manual, Appendix F: Access Management Design Standards for Entrances and Intersections
For a driveway serving one or two homes, that sentence is most of the answer. For a private entrance, safety is not a pass or fail test at the spot you picked. It is a search along your frontage for the place where a driver pulling out can see the most road, and VDOT runs that search with you.
The regulation says the same thing from the owner's side. Under 24VAC30-73-90 the owner identifies the desired location with the help of the district administrator's designee, and if the minimum intersection sight distance in the permit terms cannot be met, the entrance should go where the designee finds the best possible sight distance. The designee may also require the owner to grade slopes, clear brush, remove trees or do similar work to get the safest way in and out that can reasonably be achieved.
What that does not promise is your preferred spot. Appendix F says the preferred location can be denied if it does not have the best possible sight distance, and 24VAC30-73-60 says VDOT will permit reasonably convenient access to a parcel of record without being obligated to approve the most convenient access or the applicant's preferred location or design. So for a single-home driveway, sight distance does not decide whether VDOT allows an entrance. It decides where the entrance goes, and how much clearing or grading that spot takes.
None of this applies until an entrance is needed on a state road at all. Whether a new drive needs a permit, and where the application goes, is covered in do I need a VDOT permit for a driveway. The access pass of reading land before pricing it is where this question sits in a full read of a parcel.
Homes and daily trips decide which safety test an entrance faces
The Access Management Regulations define the entrance classes in 24VAC30-73-10, and the class sets the sight distance standard. District administrators or their designees issue both private and commercial entrance permits under those rules; the classes are defined word for word in the VDOT entrance permit entry.
| Class | Sight distance |
|---|---|
| Private entrance | Cannot be denied on sight distance; placed at the location with the best possible sight distance |
| Low volume commercial entrance | No less than minimum stopping or intersection sight distance |
| Commercial entrance | No less than minimum intersection sight distance |
The regulation defines both measures. Intersection sight distance is the view a driver stopped at the entrance needs of the intersecting highway to decide when to enter or cross it. Stopping sight distance is the distance a driver on the highway, at a given speed, needs to bring the vehicle to a stop after an object becomes visible. The first is about the driver waiting at the entrance; the second is about the driver already on the highway.
The regulation does not say why the classes are treated differently, but the definitions show what separates them. A private entrance is defined by what it serves: up to two residences, access to fields, or a small infrastructure facility. The two commercial classes are defined by more residences or lots than that, or by daily trips. One plain reading is that more trips put more turning vehicles in front of highway traffic, so for those classes the best available spot on the frontage is not enough on its own.
The commercial floor, the speed it is measured at, and who pays to reach it
No less than minimum intersection sight distance shall be obtained for a commercial entrance and no less than minimum stopping or intersection sight distance shall be obtained for a low volume commercial entrance.
24VAC30-73-80, Minimum sight distance for commercial entrances
Sight distance is measured under VDOT practices and must conform to the VDOT standards specified in the permit terms. The legal speed limit is used unless the design speed is available and approved by VDOT. An applicant can ask for the operating speed instead only by furnishing a speed study, and only where the method shows the operating speed is lower than the legal limit and the designee judges that safety is not compromised for either driver.
Appendix F turns the standard into distances. Its Table 2-5 lists intersection sight distance for a two-lane major road running from 225 feet at a 20 mph design speed to 775 feet at 70 mph, with 555 feet at 50 mph and 610 feet at 55 mph along the way, using design speed where it is available and legal speed where it is not. Those are the manual's design figures, not the terms of any particular permit. The stopping sight distance a low volume commercial entrance needs sits in separate Appendix A1 tables, and the residency is the place to get that figure for a given road.
Where the frontage cannot deliver the distance, the regulation puts the cost of adjusting the highway's horizontal or vertical alignment to reach the required intersection sight distance on the permit applicant. The Commissioner of Highways may grant an exception to the required sight distance after a traffic engineering investigation, and the applicant furnishes that report, prepared by a professional engineer the applicant engages.
Two neighboring questions also bear on commercial ground. How entrance spacing works near an interchange is taken up in how far from an exit is still commercial ground, and why buyers ask about the counts behind a commercial entrance is in what a traffic count is and why buyers ask.
What Appendix F asks the first few feet of a driveway to look like
Location is half of a safe entrance. The other half is the shape of the pavement or gravel where the drive leaves the road. Appendix F sets the same design list for every private and low volume commercial entrance:
- An entrance radius of at least 20 feet.
- Entrance pipe culverts sized for the run-off expected from a 10-year frequency storm.
- Grades that start back of the shoulder line.
- A width of at least 12 feet, tied smoothly into the roadway surface.
- A surface of crusher run gravel, asphalt, concrete or similar, running from the edge of the roadway to the right-of-way line.
On slope and grade the manual stops at a recommendation: VDOT recommends grades along such entrances not exceed 10 percent, and where they do, consideration should be given to paving the entrance. On a hillside tract that recommendation, and the grading the designee may require for sight distance, can bear on which stretch of the road frontage is the practical place for a drive. Grade limits on the private road behind the entrance are a separate matter, taken up in how mountain roads affect what land is worth.
On shoulder and ditch section roads, installing a private entrance to VDOT policies and engineering standards is the owner's responsibility under 24VAC30-73-90, though the owner may ask VDOT to handle the shoulder and the entrance pipe at the owner's expense, billed at actual cost.
The residency applies the standard, and the permit terms are the last word
VDOT says entrance review is based on its access management regulations and standards. For these counties the residency is Martinsville for Carroll, Christiansburg for Floyd, Montgomery and Pulaski, and Wytheville for Grayson and Wythe, each listed with its phone number on the six counties page.
A few rules can change the answer the manual gives. Entrance standards a locality sets that are stricter than VDOT's govern. A new entrance inside the City of Galax starts with the city, which the preface to Appendix F leaves outside the access management standards unless it chooses to apply them. A commercial entrance permit is not approved before the locality approves the site plan or subdivision plat, or any applicable land use authorization where neither process applies.
Approval is also conditional for the commercial classes. Under 24VAC30-73-110 their tenure is conditional, low volume commercial entrances included, and what that means for a drive that picks up a third home is taken up in whether two parcels can share a driveway.
Wondering where on the frontage an entrance would go?
Send the county, the road and a rough sketch of the frontage, and Lowell will talk through the entrance class and what the residency is likely to look at. No cost, no obligation.
Got it. Thank you.
We'll be in touch shortly with an honest read.
Questions this raises
Can VDOT make an owner clear trees or grade a bank for a private driveway?
Yes. Under VDOT's Access Management Regulations, the district administrator's designee may require the property owner to grade slopes, clear brush, remove trees or do similar work needed to provide the safest means of getting in and out that can reasonably be achieved. The designee decides where the best possible sight distance is, and the work falls to the owner.
Which speed does VDOT use when it measures sight distance at a commercial entrance?
The legal speed limit, unless a design speed is available and approved by VDOT. The operating speed can be used instead only when the applicant furnishes a speed study, the method shows the operating speed is lower than the legal limit, and the district administrator's designee judges that using it will not compromise safety for a driver at the entrance or on the highway.
Can a commercial entrance go in where the frontage falls short of the required sight distance?
The regulations address that two ways. Under 24VAC30-73-80 the permit applicant bears the cost of any work to adjust the highway's horizontal or vertical alignment to reach the required intersection sight distance. Under 24VAC30-73-50 the Commissioner of Highways may grant an exception to the required sight distance after a traffic engineering investigation, with a report prepared by a professional engineer the applicant engages. Whether a given frontage can meet the figure is a question for the VDOT residency.
Where this page's facts come from
Every rule, office and figure above traces to one of these. Rules change; check the office before you act on one.
- Road Design Manual, Appendix F: Access Management Design Standards for Entrances and Intersections Virginia Department of Transportation
- 24VAC30-73-10: definitions of the entrance classes and sight distance terms Virginia Administrative Code
- 24VAC30-73-50: exceptions and appeals Virginia Administrative Code
- 24VAC30-73-60: reasonably convenient access and stricter local standards Virginia Administrative Code
- 24VAC30-73-80: minimum sight distance for commercial entrances Virginia Administrative Code
- 24VAC30-73-90: private entrances Virginia Administrative Code
- 24VAC30-73-100: local approval before a commercial entrance permit Virginia Administrative Code
- 24VAC30-73-110: commercial entrance tenure Virginia Administrative Code
- Land use permits Virginia Department of Transportation
- Districts and residencies Virginia Department of Transportation