U.S. Route 460 in Virginia runs east–west through the southern part of the Commonwealth. The road has two separate pieces in Virginia, joined by a relatively short section in West Virginia. Most of US 460 is a four-lane divided highway.

US 460 from Interstate 81 at Christiansburg west to Pikeville, Kentucky, including the piece in West Virginia, is Corridor Q of the Appalachian Development Highway System. From West Virginia east to I-81, US 460 also is part of the proposed Interstate 73.

Most of present US 460 or its former alignments was part of the initial Virginia highway system, defined in 1918. Specifically, the following pieces existed:

In late 1921, the Virginia State Highway Commission recommended that the General Assembly add the road from State Route 11 (now U.S. Route 19) at Claypool Hill northwest to Grundy to the state highway system as a spur of SR 11 to provide "an easterly outlet from Buchanan County". This spur was assigned the designation State Route 11X by 1923, and later that year it became State Route 111. It was renumbered State Route 126 in the 1928 renumbering and State Route 84 in the 1933 renumbering. A 6.38-mile (10.27 km) extension from Grundy northwest towards Kentucky was added in 1932, and the rest to the state line was added in 1936. In the 1940 renumbering, SR 84 was renumbered State Route 4 to match Kentucky Route 4.

In the early 1970s, the former Virginian Railway right-of-way along the north bank of the New River eastward from a point near the Virginia-West Virginia border, near Glen Lyn to Narrows (both in Virginia) was acquired by VDOT's predecessor agency from the Norfolk and Western Railway to enable four-laning of the highway through the narrow space between the river and rocky bluffs. (The N&W main line follows the south bank through this area).

See Corridor Q for more information on U.S. 460 in Virginia

From Lynchburg east to Suffolk, the highway was built closely following the main line of the Norfolk and Western Railway (now Norfolk Southern), in many places.

Legend has it that William Mahone (1826–1895), builder of the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad and his wife, Otelia Butler Mahone (1837–1911), traveled along the newly completed Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad naming stations. Otelia was reading Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott. From his historical Scottish novels, Otelia chose the place names of Wakefield as well as Windsor and Waverly. She tapped the Scottish Clan "McIvor" for the name of Ivor, a small town in neighboring Southampton County.[citation needed]

As they continued west, they reached a station in Prince George County where they could not agree on a suitable name from the books. Instead, they became creative, and invented a new name in honor of their dispute. This is how the tiny community of Disputanta was named.

The N&P railroad was completed in 1858. William Mahone became a Major General in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War, and later, a Senator in the United States Congress. After the War, he was also a major force in linking three trunk railroads across a southern tier of Virginia from Norfolk to Bristol to form the Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio Railroad, the principal predecessor of the Norfolk and Western.

William and Otelia Mahone made Petersburg their family home in their later years. In modern times, a large portion of U.S. Highway 460 between Petersburg and Suffolk is named General Mahone Boulevard in his honor.

From Petersburg to Suffolk US 460 is a four lane non-divided highway. It is a popular alternative to I-64 when going from Richmond and other points in central Virginia to the Currituck Sound and Outer Banks of North Carolina, avoiding the congestion and tunnels of the more northerly I-64 corridor. The road passes through several small towns that built up at stops along the railroad line. Two of these, Windsor and Waverly, have earned reputations for being speed traps. A well known local landmark, the Virginia Diner is in Wakefield, the so-called "Peanut Capital of the World" and near the site of the first commercial peanut crop grown in the New World.

As of 2010[update] there are plans for construction of a new, interstate-quality US 460 between Petersburg and Suffolk. The 55-mile (89 km), four-lane, divided highway would be built south of the existing four-lane undivided US 460 by a public–private partnership. The $1.44 billion to $1.8 billion cost of the road would be offset by tolls which could range from $5.50 to $11 for cars and up to $22 for trucks. The speed limit on the road would be set at 75 miles per hour (121 km/h) as an incentive for drivers. In addition, a tolled, truck lane would be added to the current US 58/US 460 bypass around Suffolk to connect with the new US 460.

VDOT conducted a failed attempt in 2006 to find a bidder able to build this 55 mile tollway and revamped its process with a new public bidding process in 2010. In the original process VDOT did not want to provide any taxpayer subsidy to the process, preferring to have it funded entirely with private moneys. In 2010 the original VDOT 460 Solicitation for Proposals (referred to as an "SFP") the Commonwealth stated that it would not provide any public moneys as a subsidy to the project. Later in the process VDOT amended that SFP to state that the Commonwealth would consider providing an up front public subsidy. Three bidders submitted proposals and VDOT has held two public presentations from the bidders with a public commentary process for any citizen to come forward and make statements.

According to VDOT 460 PPTA website, the three bidders currently under consideration are Cintra who requested a $782 million up front taxpayer subsidy, Multi Modal Solutions who requested a $500 million up front taxpayer subsidy, and 460 Partners who requested no up front public subsidy.