The Georgia Department of Transportation has announced public meetings on federally funded transportation projects planned in Northeast Georgia.

The meetings are set for 5-7 p.m. Thursday at Helen City Hall, 25 Alpenrosen St., and 5-7 p.m. Nov. 1 at the Jackson County Parks and Recreation Department’s Pat Bell Conference Center, 7020 Highway 82 Spur in Maysville.

Residents will be able to look at a draft of the fiscal 2013-16 Statewide Transportation Improvement Program, or STIP, Georgia’s four-year transportation and capital improvements program.

Projects include highway, bridge, public transit, bike, pedestrian, railroad and other improvements as identified through the DOT planning efforts.

The projects specifically will target work planned for Banks, Dawson, Elbert, Franklin, Habersham, Hart, Jackson, Lumpkin, Rabun, Stephens, Towns, Union and White counties, which are not designated as “metropolitan.”

In the 15 metropolitan areas of the state, including Gainesville-Hall County, public involvement is the responsibility of the local metropolitan planning organizations, according to the DOT.

The counties in Northeast Georgia that have metropolitan planning organizations are Clarke, Forsyth, Gwinnett and Hall.

Hall County projects are developed by the Gainesville-Hall Metropolitan Planning District, which maintains a long-range document, the 2040 Metropolitan Transportation Plan, as well as the four-year Transportation Improvement Program.

At the Northeast Georgia meetings, the public also will be able to look at maps of local projects and discuss them with DOT staff.

The 2013-16 plan calls for $8.6 billion in projects statewide, with a fiscal 2013 amount of $2.13 billion, according to the nearly 400-page document.

The funding breakdown is $6.12 billion, federal sources; $1.5 billion, state sources; and $970 million, local sources.