GDOT to Hold Two Open Houses on Proposed STIP Projects

The Georgia Department of Transportation is making available the Draft FY 2015 – 2018 Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) plans in Northeast Georgia for public review and comment.

Two public open houses will be held in the coming weeks to give taxpayers and citizens a chance to come and review the projects, meet with the GDOT engineers, and ask questions or offer comments.

GDOT spokesperson Teri Pope said the STIP specifies federally funded transportation projects for non-urban communities in rural Georgia for fiscal years 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.

“For counties that are not part of the metropolitan areas, our more rural counties, Georgia DOT does their transportation planning for t hem, ” Pope said. “So for rural counties we have these open houses annually to show citizens what is being funded for the next four years with federal money.”

The Georgia DOT District One Office serving Northeast Georgia will sponsor two Open House meetings where the public can view the Draft FY 15-18 STIP.

“August 26th, we’ll be meeting at the Pickens County Library in Jasper,” she said. “Our second meeting will be on September 4th in the Elbert Public Library. And if you can’t meet there, all of our information is on our Web site at www.gdot.gov. “

The meetings are open to the public and all are encouraged and welcome to attend.   Pope said the projects listed will not be just for Elbert or Pickens counties.

Projects available to view and be discussed include projects in Franklin, Hart, Banks, Elbert, Stephens, and other Northeast Georgia counties.

In Franklin County, some of the projects on the list include phase two of Lavonia’s Streetscape project, which includes creating pedestrian and bike paths along Railroad St and Bowers St.

Other projects include road maintenance and resurfacing on I-85 from SR63 in Banks County to SR17 in Franklin County, as well as on SR17, and SR106.

In Hart Couny, future STIP projects include major bridge repair work on bridges over SR’s 28, 52, 72, and 77.

Also, plans for major repair and resurfacing of parts of SR8/U.S.29 and SR17.

If you can’t make either of the open houses, you can go online to www.dot.ga.gov/stip to look at the planned draft STIP projects.