Relief is on the way for motorists struggling to turn left off of Main Street at Milnwood Road.

Town officials are planning to widen the intersection, adding protected turn lanes on Main Street designed to make traffic flow a lot better.

A schematic of the proposal was displayed for town council members at their August work session. The expansion will come on the Tractor Supply side of the highway and extend north to Bojangles.

“And it should really help with the traffic flow,” Town Manager Gerald Spates said in the work session.

It will be a Virginia Department of Transportation project. A preliminary rough cost estimate — including design, land acquisition and permanent easements — is $572,000.

Spates speculated that work would get under way in the next 12 months. The biggest thing, he said, will be the traffic signals. Workers will have to redo all of the poles.

Ultimately, the intersection will have seven lanes when the work is completed. That is projected for 2017.

The intersection has been the site of numerous accidents. It is also quite a busy one. Average traffic along that section of Main Street (to Belmont Circle) is approximately 20,000 vehicles per day.