A new name for I-66 could be all yours. Photo by afagen

In times of trouble, jurisdictions find creative ways to raise cash. For Virginia, it’s allowing well-heeled individuals and influential corporations to slap their name on roads and bridges, reports the Examiner:

Desperate for cash to build and fix roads, Virginia recently approved legislation that would allow corporations or individuals to pay to put their names on the state’s roads and bridges. Following a successful program that allowed corporations to brand state highway rest stops, the naming-rights measure is expected to generate tens of millions of dollars for roads, according to transportation officials who are now identifying which pieces of the state’s infrastructure are ripe for naming and what to charge.

The naming rights vary in price according to how important the road is. Slapping your corporate moniker on Glebe Road, for example, would only cost $20,000 to $50,000. A stretch of I-395 through Arlington, though, would be close to $200,000. Tunnels and ferries would go for $3.1 million, and getting a packaged deal of 25 interchanges would cost $19 million.

Of course, Virginia legislators were all too aware of the havoc such branding could provoke and prepared accordingly—they prohibited anything “profane, obscene, or vulgar … sexually explicit or graphic … excretory related … descriptive of intimate body parts or genitals … descriptive of illegal activities or substances … condones or encourages violence … socially, racially, or ethnically offensive or disparaging.” Darn.

Probably the closest thing we have here in D.C. is sponsorship programs and ad purchases for local parks and recreation centers.