page_title: History of Richmond, Virginia
section_title: 1945–1960: Postwar Richmond and Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike
hierarchical_section_title: History of Richmond, Virginia / 20th century / 1945–1960: Postwar Richmond and Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike
caption_attribution_description: Title: Construction of Interstate 95, downtown Richmond Creator: Adolph B. Rice Studio Date: March 28, 1958 Identifier: Rice Collection 1832B Format: 1 negative, safety film, 4 x 5 in. Rights Info: No known restrictions on publication. Repository: Library of Virginia, Prints and Photographs, 800 E. Broad St., Richmond, VA, 23219, USA, digitool1.lva.lib.va.us:8881/R
context_page_description: The history of Richmond, Virginia, as a modern city, dates to the early 17th century, and is crucial to the development of the colony of Virginia, the American Revolutionary War, and the Civil War. After Reconstruction, Richmond's location at the falls of the James River helped it develop a diversified economy and become a land transportation hub.
context_section_description: In 1948, Oliver Hill became the first black person elected to the city council since the Reconstruction era. Also in 1948, WTVR-TV, the "south's first television station" began broadcasting in Richmond.
  As roads improved in the early 20th century, streetcars were unable to compete with automobiles and buses.  The Richmond-Petersburg area's interurban services were gone by 1939.  The last streetcars ran in 1949 on the Highland Park line when they were replaced by buses.
  As the National Auto Trails system grew into a national network of highways, the area was served by the Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway the busy north-south corridor in central Virginia shared by U.S. 1 and U.S. Route 301 through the cities of Richmond, Colonial Heights, and Petersburg.  It crossed the James River on the Robert E. Lee Memorial Bridge.  After World War II, with only four traffic lanes and long stretches of undivided roadway, the Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway became a major area of traffic congestion, as well as the site of occasional spectacular and deadly head-on collisions.
  In 1955, prior to the creation of the U.S. Interstate Highway System, the Virginia General Assembly created the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike Authority as a state agency to administer the new Turnpike of the same name.  The new toll road was planned with only 15 exits, and most of these were well away from the highly developed commercial areas along parallel U.S. 301. The Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike opened in 1958, and soon was granted the
  Interstate 95 designation in the Richmond area, splitting into Interstates 85 and 95 at Petersburg. The turnpike disrupted the urban fabric of central Richmond and the Jackson Ward neighborhood.
caption: Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike under construction, bisecting Jackson Ward
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "7582", "Image ImageLength": "5800", "Image BitsPerSample": "8", "Image Compression": "Uncompressed", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "1", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "1", "Image XResolution": "150", "Image YResolution": "150", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2008:08:19 14:37:42", "Image ExifOffset": "236", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "374", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9264", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "750", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "574"}