End of US highway 360 |
Mileage: in 1989 AASHTO listed a figure of 235 miles for US 360... however, that included the mileage of US 360's associated business routes. According to the state subtotals on AASHTO's 1989 spreadsheet, mainline US 360's actual end-to-end total at the time was 223 miles. That closely matches our own 2020 measurement, which yielded 225.3 miles (reroutings and realignments likely explain the difference).
|
Up to that intersection, US 360 is overlapped with Business 58. The 360 designation ends there, while Bus. 58 continues ahead on Riverside Drive. The crossroad (Main Street) is now VA highway 293, but was once US 29, explaining why US 360 originally ended at that particular junction. This shot was from southwestbound Main Street:
|
That assembly indicates both the west beginning of US 360 (to the right), and the west beginning of VA 360 (straight ahead). That highway is actually the original US 360: it curves back east, and ends at modern US 360 near South Boston. (Note that photo was taken before the US 58 bypass was built, so the crossroad was still mainline US 58, instead of Business 58.) One more perspective:
|
That was looking southeast on Riverside (Bus. 58); US 360 begins straight ahead. But in the opinion of several highway enthusiasts, the US 360 designation should be removed from the approximately-2-mile segment of Bus. 58 between there and the Danville Expressway (mainline US 58). Instead, US 360 should be extended west with the US 58 bypass to where the expressway ends at the Martinsville Highway. Then US 360 should loop around and subsume US 311, continuing southwestward all the way to Winston-Salem NC (see the US 311 page for more detail).
It is a bit unusual that a town beyond Richmond would merit a reference on that sign... particularly a town like Burkeville, with a population of only 500.
Research and/or photo credits: James Britton; Martin Karner; Charlie O'Reilly; Mike Roberson; Dale Sanderson; Jimmy Storey; Michael Summa; Charles Turner
Page originally created 1999;
last updated Nov. 14, 2024.
last updated Nov. 14, 2024.