What you will make

A one-page corridor reference sheet with a locator map, road classification, jurisdiction questions, and dated source links.

A road classification helps explain its role, but does not establish its maintenance responsibility or prove compliance with a design standard.

• Distinguish road function from maintenance responsibility.
• Find the current VDOT design reference relevant to a planning question.
• Identify information that requires confirmation before a road concept becomes a design.

Work through the method

1. Define one corridor question

   Choose a short road segment and write a question about its role in a downtown or comprehensive-plan discussion. Record the road name, locality, and endpoints. Keep the question specific, such as whether a corridor serves mainly through travel or local access.

   Check your work: Your sheet identifies one segment and one planning question.

2. Read the functional classification

   Open VDOT's How roads are classified page and follow its functional-classification map link. Use the map's location search and display all three layers named on the page: LRS based, Non-LRS based, and Future Roads. Record the visible class and distinguish an existing road from a future-road feature.

   Check your work: The sheet names the map, layers viewed, classification, and viewing date.

3. Check responsibility separately

   Create separate entries for functional class and maintenance responsibility. Verify maintenance through an official locality or VDOT record when available. Otherwise record it as unresolved. A class label or route number alone is insufficient confirmation.

   Check your work: No maintenance responsibility is inferred solely from the classification map.

4. Locate the applicable design reference

   Open the current Road Design Manual page and identify the chapter or appendix relevant to your question. VDOT identifies this manual as its primary roadway design resource for projects it owns or maintains. Check local requirements for other roads. Record a reference, rather than selecting dimensions without project context.

   Check your work: Your reference entry explains its relevance and identifies any unresolved jurisdiction question.

5. Assemble the reference sheet

   Combine the locator map, classification, dated references, and two questions for technical review. The classification page describes a map based on the 2014 adopted federal classification with monthly interim updates. Preserve that context and label your output Planning reference sheet.

   Check your work: A reader can distinguish mapped information, confirmed records, and unanswered questions.

Optional practice: prepare a corridor reference sheet

1. Choose one corridor relevant to an approved project topic.
2. Record its functional classification using VDOT's map and the three required layers.
3. Find a relevant manual section and record maintenance responsibility as confirmed or unresolved.
4. Create a one-page sheet and two technical follow-up questions. This practice is self-directed and does not count as a class grade or official Canvas assignment.

Bring the method into a product

• Corridor reference sheet with a locator map
• Source and follow-up question log

Suggested formats: PDF, PNG, CSV.

Reflect: Which distinction changed your understanding of the corridor: road function, maintenance responsibility, or applicable design reference?

Avoid these mistakes

• Assuming functional classification establishes maintenance responsibility.
• Reading a future-road feature as an existing roadway.
• Presenting a planning map or reference sheet as an engineering design, survey, or as-built record.