Virginia to Put Road Names Up for Sale

Could Franconia Road soon become Taco Bell Road? How about buying the street outside your house and naming it after your pet?

These could soon be a reality, now that Virginia has approved legislation to allow people and corporations to put their names on roads for a price, the Washington Examiner reports.

The law, which will go into effect on July 1, allows buyers to put any name they want on a road, as long as it isn't obscene, offensive, or advocates drug use or violence.

Naming rights to interstates like I-95 could go for $200,000 in an urban area, while rights to secondary roads could be sold for as little as $5,000, according to the Examiner.

Roads that have already been named by the General Assembly, such as memorial highways, may not be renamed unless the new name incorporates the old name, according to the bill. The money for the purchase and associated annual fees would go into the Highway Maintenance and Operating Fund.

Both Virginia Sen. Barbara Favola (D-Arlington) and Michael Cassidy, the preident of the Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis, told the Examiner that they did not expect the option to buy naming rights to help the commonwealth's budget in any significant way.