Richmond-Area Neighborhoods Near an I-295 Exit: Using the Loop to Skip Downtown

Published October 18, 2026

Nobody publishes a tidy dataset of Richmond-area homes by Interstate exit, so this guide does not rank neighborhoods by price or by drive time. It anchors every pick to something you can check: an exit number and road from the VDOT exit list for I-295, plus a county or agency page that shows what is near that road. The Loop is I-295, which VDOT describes as about 53 miles around Petersburg and Richmond, starting at I-95 in Prince George County and ending at I-64 in Short Pump.

If your trips run to the west side, the Route 288 corridor guide covers that arc, and commuting south to Petersburg and Fort Lee covers the other direction. For noise near a ramp, read the quietest-neighborhoods guide before you fall for a house near an interchange. This post is about the Loop itself, and about the Henrico and Hanover exits where it passes through places buyers actually shop.

What the exit list tells you, and what it does not

VDOT numbers the Loop’s exits from 1 at I-95 south of Petersburg up to 53 at I-64 west. Three of them are junctions with other interstates: exit 28 (Route 60 and I-64 east), exit 43 (I-95 north and Route 1) and exit 53 (I-64 west). Everything else on the list is a local road. That matters for the “skip downtown” idea: a trip between two of those junctions can stay on the Loop, while a trip to an office downtown will leave it.

It also tells you what the list cannot. An exit number does not say how far a street is from the ramp, how long the trip takes at 5 p.m., or what the houses cost. So the picks below are ordered by exit number, from the east side of the Henrico County stretch around to the west end. The order is geography, not preference.

Varina: Route 5 and Route 895 (exits 22 and 25)

VDOT lists Route 5 at exit 22 and Route 895 at exit 25, both in Henrico County. Both roads are named on Henrico County’s page for the Varina Area Library, which describes a 22-acre site bounded by Pocahontas Parkway (Route 895) and New Market Road (Route 5) in the Varina magisterial district. That makes the two roads a checkable pair of reference points: a county-built public building in the Varina district sits between the streets that feed exits 22 and 25. For a Varina buyer, those two roads are the practical way onto the Loop.

Wrong for: anyone whose daily trip is to Short Pump. Exit 22 and exit 53 are near opposite ends of the Henrico stretch, so you would ride most of the Loop each way.

Sandston: Route 60 and Airport Drive (exits 28 and 31)

Exit 28 is Route 60 and I-64 east; exit 31 is Route 156, Airport Drive. Sandston is eastern Henrico County, and the Richmond International Airport describes itself on its ground transportation page as located near I-64, I-295 and Pocahontas Parkway. So the proxy here is the airport itself: if you fly often, the Airport Drive exit is the closest Loop ramp VDOT lists to it.

Wrong for: buyers who want the quietest block possible. Aircraft overhead is a real factor near an airport, and our flight-path piece explains how to check it for an address.

Hanover County: Creighton Road, Route 360, Meadowbridge and Chamberlayne (exits 34, 37, 38, 41)

VDOT puts four Loop exits in Hanover County: Creighton Road (exit 34), Route 360 or Mechanicsville Turnpike (exit 37), Meadowbridge Road (exit 38) and Chamberlayne Road, Route 301/2 (exit 41). Hanover County’s Roads and Transportation page lists county-administered road projects on Creighton Road and on Route 360 Business, so these are corridors the county is actively working. See Mission Realty’s Hanover community page for the area.

Exit 43, I-95 north, is the next exit after Chamberlayne, which is why this stretch suits people who travel north on I-95 and would rather not pass through the city to do it.

Wrong for: buyers whose work is south of the James. From here, the Loop is the long way around.

Glen Allen: Staples Mill Road (exit 49)

Exit 49 is Route 33, Staples Mill Road, in Henrico County. VDOT’s Staples Mill Road small area plan says the road helps travelers reach I-64, I-295 and I-95, and that the Staples Mill Road Amtrak Station has some of the highest rail ridership in Virginia. For Glen Allen buyers who plan to use Amtrak, the proxy to check is how close an address is to Staples Mill Road, and then how that road connects to the ramp.

Wrong for: buyers who want to avoid arterial roads. Staples Mill Road is the kind of street VDOT studied for congestion, safety and transit-oriented development.

Short Pump: the west end at I-64 (exit 53)

VDOT says the Loop ends at I-64 in Short Pump, and its exit list shows exit 53 as I-64 west in Henrico County. Short Pump is the end of the line, which means one clear thing: you can reach I-64 without passing through the city center, and from there go east or west. That is the entire proxy; we are not claiming a drive time.

Wrong for: buyers who work on the airport or Sandston side. Between exit 53 and exit 31 you cross nearly the whole Henrico stretch of the Loop.

Where Chesterfield fits

VDOT lists two Loop exits in Chesterfield County: Route 10 at exit 15 and Route 618 at exit 16. We do not have a community page for that part of the county, so we are not ranking a neighborhood there. For Chesterfield buyers, start at the Chesterfield County hub and see the Route 288 guide linked above.

A five-minute check before you shortlist a house

Exit proximity is only worth something if the route works for your actual week, so run this check on any listing you like. First, find the nearest named road from the exit list, such as New Market Road, Airport Drive, Mechanicsville Turnpike, Staples Mill Road or Nuckols Road, and see whether the house is on it or on a side street that feeds it. Second, work out which ramp you would use for each trip you make most often, and whether it is the same one in both directions. Third, drive it at your real commute hour, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, and note where traffic backs up on the ramp or the local road.

Fourth, look at what else the exit serves. An exit with a train station, an airport or a large public building nearby will draw more trips than one that serves only subdivisions. Fifth, check the VDOT page again for project notices, since a ramp under construction changes the answer for a season. None of these steps needs a price figure, which is the point: they test the route, and the route is what the Loop is for.

How to use this list

Pick two or three exits from the guide, then test the route yourself: drive from a house you like to the ramp and onto the Loop at the hour you would actually commute. If you are weighing the monthly cost of a longer drive against a smaller payment, run the numbers in our mortgage calculator, and when you are ready to buy, our buyer process walks you through offers and closing.

Not sure which side of the Loop fits your week? Tell us the two or three places you travel to most. We will set up the saved search for the exits that match.