All of VDOT is not moving to STARS. NoVA SSP is the primary VDOT user of STARS, with new SSP functions in Southwest and Northwest Virginia added in 2012 on STARS. VDOT only got 150 manager/SSP trucks with STARS radios initially and their fleet has nearly 5,000 mobile radios on low band. They definitely are NOT moving off low band for the foreseeable future.
There are now more than 50 low band repeaters up state wide. New ones added in the past year or so are in Alleghany, Bath, Highland, Nelson, Grayson, Augusta, and more. In some areas there is not much traffic until snow or bad weather, then they are pinging all the time. The Augusta repeater on Elliott Knob is on 47.22, and can be heard east of the mountains even. Again, mostly quiet until bad weather hits.
Nova Safety Service Patrol has largely moved off 47.04 onto STARS. The 47.04 site may be reallocated to Fairfax Highway Maintenance. In VDOT NoVA there is a culture not wanting to use two-way radio, and in many places turn it off and refuse to use it. The exception is many Loudoun County headquarters and mobiles who use the 47.08 repeater on Short Hill.
Virginia Beach SSP continue to use the monster repeater on 47.30, heard in much of southeast VA if you have a decent antenna. Day in and day out this is the most active VDOT channel. The other typically busy channel is Culpeper Madison on 47.34, also heard in much of the eastern half of Virginia because of its location over 3,000 feet.
There are so many repeaters on their system now that the number of users on most channels is fairly small, so many repeaters have little traffic until the snow hits.
One thing to try is just programming in the FCC traditional Highway frequencies, roughly every 20 KHz from 47.020 to 47.400. Not every one is used in Virginia but if you have any kind of good antenna and scan those during and after a snow storm or hurricane you will be able to hear repeaters on many of those channels, in fact you will pick up 2 repeaters on some of those freqs, depending on your location. Disable PL, but their repeaters use standard PL 110.9 and 114.8. Simplex ops uses some of those 47 MHz freqs on different PLs. Repeater inputs are paired in the 45 MHz range, as is a workzone channel. There has not been a significant weather event in Virginia for a couple of winters so the widespread and noticeable activity in the lower 47 MHz band has seemed absent.