Virginia has one of the nation's most extensive highway systems, one of the leading ports—Hampton Roads—and two of the nation's busiest air terminals.
Virginia was a leader in early railroad development. Rail lines were completed between Richmond and Fredericksburg in 1836, from Portsmouth to Roanoke in 1837, and from Richmond to Washington, DC, in 1872. Virginia's 1,290 mi (2,076 km) of track formed a strategic supply link for both the Confederate and Union armies during the Civil War. Railroads remained the primary system of transportation until the rise of the automobile in the 1920s. As of 2000, there were 10 rail companies operating in the state, two of them Class I railways with combined trackage of 3,033 rail mi (4,853 km). Principal (Class I) railroads were CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern. These two, combined with one Canadian, five local, and two switching and terminal railroads, carried 37 million tons of freight originating in Virginia in 2000. In 2000, 50 million rail-tons of coal terminated in Virginia. Amtrak passenger trains served 21 communities.
Virginia's road network, at first built mainly for hauling tobacco to market, had expanded across the Blue Ridge by 1782, to the Cumberland Gap by 1795, and into the Shenandoah Valley by means of the Valley Turnpike in 1840. As of 2000, Virginia had 70,393 mi (112,629 km) of public roads, 6,019,194 registered vehicles, and 4,836,993 licensed drivers. Major interstate highways are I-95 extending north–south from Washington, DC, via Richmond to the North Carolina border (and, eventually, to Florida); I-81, connecting northern Virginia with the southwest; and I-64, linking the Hampton Roads area with West Virginia via Clifton Forge and Covington in the west. The 18-mi (29-km) Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, completed in 1964, connects the Eastern Shore with the southeastern mainland. Popular scenic highways include the Blue Ridge Parkway, Colonial National Historical Parkway, and George Washington Memorial Parkway.
Virginia's District of Columbia suburbs are linked to the nation's capital by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority's bus and rail systems. Norfolk, Newport News-Hampton, and Richmond have extensive bus systems.
Virginia's Hampton Roads has one of the largest and strongest commercial port complexes in the world. Three state-owned general cargo marine terminals—Newport News Marine Terminal, Norfolk International Terminals, and Portsmouth Marine Terminal—share the harbor with more than 20 privately owned bulk terminals. Foreign and domestic waterborne coal shipments originating in Virginia totaled 22 short tons in 2000, accounting for 45% of all such shipments that year. Located on a naturally deep, ice-free harbor, 18 mi (29 km) from the open sea, Virginia's ports have the largest landside intermodal facilities on the US east coast. Each general cargo terminal in the port has on-site rail connections that offer single and double-stack train service from the docks. Virginia's mid-Atlantic location and transportation infrastructure offer users of the port access to twothirds of the US population within 24 hours. In addition to the marine terminals, the Virginia Inland Port (VIP) terminal, just west of Washington, DC, in Front Royal, Virginia, offers daily rail service to the marine terminals in Hampton Roads and allows direct access to the international trade routes of the 75 international shipping lines calling at the ports. In addition to the movement of international export and import cargo, the VIP is a full-service domestic rail ramp for Norfolk Southern's domestic service.
Virginia's 275 public and private airports in 2000 included 55 licensed public-use airports and 220 private airports; there were 115 heliports and 5 seaplane bases. Each year, some 9.6 million passengers enplane at Dulles International Airport; over 7.5 million enplane at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (at Arlington), a major center for domestic flights.