Goochland lists road projects shaping traffic and growth pressures

The roadwork map residents keep coming back to

Goochland County’s transportation list is most useful when you treat it as a daily-driving guide, not a planning memo. It pulls together the places where growth is beginning to show up on the road network: Cardwell Road and Broad Street Road, Route 288, Ashland Road, Hockett Road, River Road, Rockville Road and Courthouse Village.

That matters because the county says its Transportation Department does more than track projects. It works with the Virginia Department of Transportation and serves as the liaison between residents and the state agency that maintains public roads, while also coordinating with the Central Virginia Transportation Authority, Greater Richmond Transit Company and the Richmond Regional Transportation Planning Organization. County leaders say Goochland has secured more than $127 million in transportation funding for future projects, a sign that the pipeline is being shaped as much by outside funding as by local priorities.

Victor Carpenter has tied that pipeline directly to county growth. Goochland County says its population grew roughly 5% from 2020 to 2022, and the county says it has seen more than $540 million in capital investment in the last eight years. The transportation list, in other words, is a response to traffic, development and the push to keep roads usable as the county changes.

Ashland Road and I-64: the biggest traffic reset

The most consequential project in the county’s pipeline is the Ashland Road and I-64 diverging diamond interchange. Goochland County says it is working closely with VDOT on the project, which is designed to handle current traffic and planned growth along the corridor. The county says the new design will widen Ashland Road to four lanes around the interchange and add a second bridge next to the existing bridge over I-64.

The schedule is already laid out. County materials say a public hearing is planned for summer 2025, followed by a request for qualifications in summer 2025, a request for proposals in winter 2025, a design-build award targeted for September 2026, a construction start in 2027 and a fixed completion date of August 2029. WRIC reported in June 2023 that the $76 million project was fully funded after $42.2 million in state funding was approved, with the remaining money covered by Central Virginia Transportation Authority regional transportation funds.

That interchange will sit inside a broader Ashland Road buildout. Goochland County says the road will widen from two lanes to four lanes between the interchange project and the Amazon facility at 2022 Ashland Road, which the county describes as an e-commerce fulfillment center serving Goochland, Richmond and surrounding areas. Frontage work there includes widening the road at the entrance, building a facility entrance road, installing a stoplight and relocating the Luck Stone entrance to align with the Project Rocky entrance.

The Rockville Opportunity Corridor is already changing lanes

If the Ashland Road interchange is the big reset, the Rockville Opportunity Corridor is the corridor where residents can already see the change on the ground. The county describes the 3.5-mile business development district on Ashland Road, or Route 623, as a growth area in eastern Goochland County, with roadway and infrastructure work that includes temporary interchange improvements, entrance roads, traffic lights, turn lanes and a long-term divergent diamond interchange plan.

Construction began in spring 2025 and is expected to roll out in phases through summer 2029. As of May 12, 2026, traffic had shifted to newly paved lanes in front of Luck Stone so crews could begin building permanent medians. That kind of lane shift is exactly the sort of day-to-day change drivers feel first, especially on a corridor where construction and growth are unfolding at the same time.

The county’s long-range plan makes clear that the Rockville area is not being treated as a stand-alone fix. It is part of a larger strategy to open land for development while managing the road capacity that comes with it. For residents, that means more turning movements, more signalized access points and a longer construction window, but also a corridor designed to absorb growth instead of being overwhelmed by it.

Hockett Road is the next major connector to watch

Hockett Road is another piece of the same traffic puzzle, and VDOT’s design shows how the county is trying to stitch corridors together rather than only widening isolated stretches. The proposed project would build a new two-lane connector road with a raised concrete median, left-turn lane, curb and gutter, sidewalk, and a roundabout at Hockett Road and Holly Lane. It would connect Route 623, Hockett Road, to Ashland Road at Broad Street.

VDOT lists the project as in design, with an estimated start in fall 2029 and an estimated completion in spring 2031. That is a long lead time, but it also reflects how much new development the county expects around the Ashland Road corridor. The Hockett project is less about a quick traffic tweak than about building a permanent connection that can handle future growth, school traffic and everyday commuter movement.

Smaller intersections still have big consequences

Not every project on the county list has a fixed construction schedule, but several are still important because they affect the trips residents make every day. At Cardwell Road and Broad Street Road, a 2016 study identified the Y-intersection as needing improvement. Goochland County says a single-lane roundabout and a traditional T-intersection were both considered, but further analysis is still needed and the timeline has not been set.

River Road and Route 6 is another pressure point. The county says the intersection has congestion, line-of-sight and speeding issues, and it is considering options such as a traffic signal or a restricted crossing U-turn, or RCUT, intersection. That is the kind of location where a small design change can make a large difference in safety, especially when speeding and sight-distance problems are already part of the problem.

Rockville Road is also on the list of future changes. Goochland County says a full realignment to meet Three Chopt Road is contemplated in the county’s Comprehensive Plan and could create a four-legged intersection with a future traffic signal. Like the other projects, it reflects a county trying to move from stopgap fixes toward a corridor layout that can better support growth.

Courthouse Village is getting the pedestrian piece

Traffic planning in Goochland is not only about cars. The Courthouse Village Small Area Plan was adopted by the Board of Supervisors on June 12, 2023 as an amendment to the county’s 2035 Comprehensive Plan, and it calls for more pedestrian facilities in Courthouse Village, including sidewalk and trail projects.

The clearest near-term piece is Courthouse Sidewalk Phase IIB. Goochland says that segment will build sidewalk along Route 6 between Goochland Cares and Marsh Drive, and it may include ADA upgrades to existing sidewalk areas. That is a small stretch on paper, but it fills an important gap near services, civic space and village foot traffic.

The county’s own transportation page shows the pattern. It is not just widening roads for more cars. It is adding lanes where demand is rising, reworking intersections where safety and access are tight, and extending sidewalks where people already need to move without a vehicle. With VDOT, state funding, regional money and federal pools all part of the mix, Goochland’s next phase of growth will be shaped as much by road design as by the development it serves.