According to Isle of Wight County Transportation Coordinator Jamie Oliver, plans to add turn lanes to the intersection of Routes 258 and 460 in Windsor likely won’t break ground until 2026 at the earliest.

Oliver updated Windsor’s Town Council on the project on June 11.

Right-of-way acquisitions and utility relocations, originally slated to start in July according to the county’s website, should begin within the next 10 months, Oliver said. Once that’s complete, the project should be able to be advertised for construction bids.

Currently, the intersection by the Windsor Dairy Queen has separate traffic lights for through traffic and for cars turning toward Petersburg or Suffolk, but only one lane. The proposed widening of Route 258, also known as Courthouse Highway and Prince Boulevard, would repurpose the existing southbound through lane as a dedicated left-turn lane toward Suffolk and add a third lane for through and westbound traffic.

Route 258 would also be widened to three lanes south of its intersection with the four-lane Route 460 highway to add a dedicated westbound left turn lane.

The work also calls for the sidewalk bordering the north side of Route 460 to be extended across Route 258 to the Citgo gas station and convenience store opposite Dairy Queen. The extended sidewalk would include a push-button crosswalk across Route 258 and border a new stormwater management pond.

The pond, which is still in its design phase, “won’t be deep basin or always wet,” Oliver said, adding that the goal is for a “minor facility” in case the corridor is ever redeveloped.

“That’s a pretty key commercial corridor,” Oliver said.

Oliver said adding a crosswalk across Route 460 isn’t currently planned as there is no receiving sidewalk on the southern end of the intersection.

The project is budgeted at $3.2 million, all of which would come from state funding through Smart Scale, a Virginia Department of Transportation formula for evaluating the cost versus regional benefit of road improvements.

Oliver said construction could take 12 to 18 months, which she called a conservative estimate. Construction will have to be coordinated with the Norfolk Southern railroad, which runs parallel to Route 460 and crosses Route 258, Oliver said.