Interstate 81 is the alternate East Coast corridor which trucks heavily use because Interstate 95 is too crowded with personal vehicles and travels through all the large East Coast cities from Richmond to Boston. While the heavy truck traffic is a good sign, remember that the interstate highway system was built for a country with half the current population. The environmental movement and the not in my backyard crowd have prevented a needed expansion of the interstate highway system. Combined with the inability of state transportation departments widen the interstates or to build alternate highways, the interstate system necessarily becomes overcrowded. Alternate highways have not been done, for example, it would be easy to upgrade US 301 to a freeway thereby bypassing the Washington DC area through Maryland and Virginia. But the political will to do so has been lacking.
Virginia has been talking about widening I-81 for over 20 years now.
In Virginia, though, the politician’s lips move a lot more than dirt does.