A nearly $16 million proposal to widen Carrollton Boulevard, also known as Route 17, has made the shortlist of projects recommended for state funding.

The Virginia Department of Transportation recently released the preliminary ranking of 270 applications for the sixth round of its Smart Scale cost-to-benefit funding formula. VDOT ranked Isle of Wight County’s request for funding to add a continuous right-turn lane at Carrollton Boulevard’s intersection with Smiths Neck Road as the No. 1 project across VDOT’s Hampton Roads District and the No. 2 project statewide.

“We feel very good about that one,” said county Transportation Administrator Jamie Oliver at a Jan. 28 meeting of the county’s Planning Commission.

The work would include pavement widening for the additional travel lane and curb-and-gutter sidewalk improvements. The project was estimated at $13.8 million in September when county supervisors listed it as their top priority among four projects submitted for Smart Scale funding. As of Jan. 14, VDOT had estimated the total cost at $15.9 million.

Smart Scale covers 100% of a project’s estimated cost with state funds. The 17-member Commonwealth Transportation Board will hold public hearings on each Smart Scale application March through April and will adopt a final six-year improvement plan in June. If included in the six-year plan, the continuous turn lane would receive state funding by mid-2031.

The work would serve as a first phase of a 2022 VDOT-recommended plan to reduce travel times for motorists using the currently four-lane divided highway that connects Newport News with North Suffolk.

A second phase that would continue the third southbound lane from Smiths Neck Road to Carrollton Boulevard’s intersection with Brewers Neck Boulevard didn’t score as highly. It’s ranked 11th out of 11 projects in the Hampton Roads District and 75th statewide. VDOT has estimated that phase at $27.3 million, meaning if both phases get approved, Isle of Wight would be the recipient of more than $40 million in state funds.

The 2 1/2-mile stretch of Carrollton Boulevard from the James River Bridge to the Brewers Neck intersection saw an average 28,000 vehicles daily in 2022. According to the strategically targeted affordable roadway solutions, or STARS, corridor study that had been the impetus for the recommended widening, Carrollton Boulevard’s intersections with Whippingham Parkway, Eagle Harbor Parkway and Smiths Neck Road, without the proposed improvements, would have been on track to see “F” grades for peak afternoon traffic by 2030 based on VDOT’s A-F grading scale.

Since then, construction has begun on a separate $8.3 million extension of Nike Park Road that will create a new signalized intersection on Carrollton Boulevard between James River Trail and Brewers Neck Boulevard. The work is expected to be complete by mid-2026, according to VDOT.

Isle of Wight’s two other Smart Scale requests submitted in September called for converting the existing intersection of Carrollton Boulevard and Sugar Hill Road, east of the Brewers Neck intersection, to a “continuous green-T” and extending the 10-foot-wide bicycle and pedestrian trail that currently terminates at Nike Park to connect to the extension of Nike Park Road. Neither is presently included on VDOT’s shortlist for state funding.

The $5.9 million Nike Park trail gap connector ranked 240th statewide while the continuous green-T ranked 250th.