Eastern Shore rails-to-trail conversion leads VDOT's $34 million SMART SCALE slate for Nov. 18

A $12.5 million project to convert a rail line to a trail in Northampton County is the largest of seven SMART SCALE orders on the Virginia Department of Transportation's Nov. 18, 2026 letting, according to VDOT's Construction Advertisement Bulletin Board (CABB).

SMART SCALE is the program Virginia uses to score and fund transportation projects. On CABB, these orders carry the "SMART SCALE" label in their descriptions. Together the seven are listed at $34,216,000.

The seven orders

• B29, Northampton County, $12,530,000: "Convert Rails to Trail." CABB lists the location as Sunnyside Rd, Cheriton, the route as "Various," and a time limit of Aug. 7, 2028.
• A46, Albemarle County and Charlottesville, $6,476,000: shared-use path starting 0.043 miles west of the Charlottesville/Albemarle border. Time limit Dec. 17, 2027.
• B24, Roanoke County, $4,500,000: bike and pedestrian improvements beginning 0.061 miles west of 4th Street. Time limit Oct. 12, 2028.
• A53, City of Staunton, $3,772,000: shared-use path; CABB lists the begin site as 59.44 Frontier Drive. Time limit Nov. 5, 2027.
• B25, Montgomery County, $3,405,000: intersection improvements 0.083 miles west of Route 637. Time limit July 12, 2027.
• B27, Rockingham County, $2,019,000: park-and-ride lot improvements 0.20 miles west of the I-81 interchange. Time limit Sept. 10, 2027.
• B11, City of Waynesboro, $1,514,000: corridor improvements at milepost 11.46, at the intersection of Rosser Avenue and Ladd Road. Time limit Feb. 5, 2028.

One more SMART SCALE order, B38 in the City of Martinsville, is advertised for the following letting on Dec. 16, 2026, at $3,427,000. It covers roadway and pedestrian improvements between points 0.04 miles west and 0.43 miles east of Pine Hall Road.

Trail and path work stands out

Three of the seven Nov. 18 orders, worth $22.8 million together, are trail or shared-use path projects: B29, A46 and A53. That is two-thirds of the SMART SCALE value on this letting. Path work tends to draw a different mix of firms than highway paving: site contractors, concrete flatwork crews, drainage and small-structure subcontractors, landscaping and fencing firms, and signing and marking crews.

The CABB table does not give trail lengths, surface types or structure counts for these orders. Those details are in the plans linked from each listing. This site has not reviewed the plans and is reporting only what the advertisement table shows.

Other locally focused work on the letting

Beyond SMART SCALE, the Nov. 18 letting includes pedestrian safety improvements in Campbell County ($4,295,000) and Tazewell County ($3,948,000), pedestrian and road improvements in the City of Hopewell ($4,986,000), and traffic signal and sidewalk construction in Henrico County ($3,249,000).

How to bid

VDOT requires prequalification to bid on its construction contracts, and the department says prequalification is also required for first-tier subcontractors unless the contract says otherwise. Its prequalification page warns that the review may take up to 60 days from receipt of an application, so firms that are not yet prequalified are unlikely to make this letting. VDOT publishes its list of prequalified vendors and updates it weekly on Wednesday.

Each advertisement on CABB links to its notices, electronic plans or proposal, and a plan-holder list. Subcontractors and suppliers can use the plan-holder list to see which primes have taken out plans and send quotes. Bonds also matter: under Code of Virginia § 2.2-4337, Commonwealth-funded transportation projects over $350,000 require performance and payment bonds, each in the full contract amount.

Follow the results

VDOT posts bid results on CABB after the letting. This site's hubs for each county and independent city list the open orders and the licensed contractors based there, and the bids page carries every VDOT order with its value and time limit.