Is RIC easy to navigate?
 

Trying to pull off a day trip from NYC to Richmond next month and unfortunately flight times are a little less than ideal (earliest I can land is 945 and the latest I can leave is 6, unless I want to connect in ATL and backtrack to Newark instead of LGA) which gives me a work day of, say, 11 to 4.

I have TSA pre-check, Delta Sky Priority and would not be checking a bag. Airport looks pretty small but that doesnt always mean easy to navigate (looking at you BWI).

If I land at 945 is it reasonable to expect to be in a cab by 10? If I rolled up at 515-530 would i still be in good shape to make a 6pm flight? Is traffic to RIC bad?

Worst case scenario I can always book a 720pm flight RIC->ATL->EWR or fly in the night before, but my strong preference is to make this a day trip.

Details please: Where sitting on inbound flight? Airline? OLCI? PreCheck? Traffic from where?

Sorry sorry.

I will have checked in online and will likely be sitting in Economy Comfort or at least a preferred seat closer to the front of the plane.

I have TSA Precheck.

I will be headed to/coming from Dumbarton

It is small and is definitely easy to navigate.
Close to 10a. From the time you leave the secure area, it's 5 minutes ~at most~ and that's if you took a slow walk to ground transportation.
More than likely, you'd be fine. There are always unknowns, but that's plenty of time at RIC.
RIC is a ways off the highway, but since you are taking a cab, that will negate the whole rental car return issue. There can be traffic at that last traffic light before you get onto the airport since that's where the gas stations are.

ETA: I just google mapped Dumbarton. It just said 30 minutes with traffic and the red zones seem in-line with my experiences (trying to catch 5p flights) I think you'll be fine leaving as late as 4:30. 64 tends to be busy but it moves. The section where 64 and 95 come together is also busy and the cars are definitely jockeying around. And that last section of 64 before you get to the airport seems less busy than where you will have started.

Just flew LGA to RIC this afternoon. Having seen your post, I made a point of looking at my watch. It took 10 minutes to get our gate check bags (YMMV of course). Then it was about 6 minutes to walk from the gate to the curb outside. Hope it goes smoothly for you.

resident Richmond VA USA
 

RIC is a small AP. I visited once. It was virtually empty in the fall. It located S of Richmond. Ground trans may take 30 minutes to downtown. I expect its easy to navigate. You should have no problems. - Not sure about summer time.

My two cents. Yes, RIC is relatively small. You can certainly get from gate to curb in 10 minutes, so getting off the airport property is pretty easy. RIC is EAST of downtown (not south, not that it matters much), but there is a bit of travel time from the airport to downtown. Should be less than 30 minutes of travel time. More like 15-20, depending on where you're going. Maybe 30 minutes to the West End, if you're headed there. Traffic should not be bad at 10 am.

I would not arrive at the airport much later than 5:15 pm for the departing flight. RIC tends to bunch outbound flights, so security lines could be slightly longer at that hour. PreCheck will certainly help, but you would not want to take much of a chance given the limited number of flights back to NYC. Also, traffic OUT of downtown could also cause a slight delay, so I would try to wrap up my work no later than 4:30 pm or so, allowing 45 minutes to get to the airport. That's very likely to leave you ample cushion, assuming all goes well, but still allows you about 15 minutes of "wiggle room" in the event of an accident on I-64 or some kind of odd delay at the airport.

I've never had a wait of more than 5 minutes at security at RIC.