With a highly rural setting and vast farmland, Floyd County residents rely on Route 8 as one of two main arteries of travel within and outside the County. Route 8 cuts through the center of the county providing access to the Town of Floyd (county seat). Route 8 continues north into Montgomery County providing the main access route to Interstate 81, Virginia Tech, and regional retail shopping areas.
Route 8 is one of only a few access routes for tourists and motorists to reach the Blue Ridge Parkway. The only other access points are from Interstate 77, which lies 25 miles to the south, and Interstate 581/U.S.220 in the Roanoke Valley (40 miles north).
Route 8 is exclusively a two-lane primary highway, which has been designated as one of Virginia's Scenic Byways. One portion of the highway received improvements in the late 1980s from the Town of Floyd, in the center of Floyd County, north to the Montgomery County/Floyd County line. Those improvements focused on widening existing road shoulders, improving line-of-sight, and straightening many areas of this section of roadway.
A corridor study focusing on the section of Route 8 from Tuggle's Gap to the Town of Floyd, and from the Floyd County line north into Christiansburg, where Route 8 terminates, will be undertaken in the upcoming fiscal year. A new alignment and extension of Route 8 will be studied for areas to the north of Riner and west of Christiansburg. This new alignment will also look at the feasibility of tying Route 8 directly into Route 114 just northwest of Christiansburg. This alignment would give north/south motorists access to U.S.460 without traveling through the Town of Christiansburg. It would also serve as a major collector road for new subdivisions in Christiansburg, who only have one means of access to/from Franklin Street.
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