Hall County's 2040 Metropolitan Transportation Plan is on track for final approval Aug. 9.

The Gainesville-Hall Metropolitan Planning Organization's Technical Coordinating Committee, a group of area engineers and planners, recommended its approval Wednesday morning.

The plan, which must be updated every four years to comply with a federal requirement concerning air quality standards, now goes before the MPO's Policy Committee.

"It's been a big group of folks working together to help solve some of the transportation issues and needs we have here in Hall County," said Jeff Carroll, the MPO's South Carolina-based consultant.

The plan, available for viewing at www.ghmpo.org, focuses on key road projects in three time periods — 2012-17, 2018-30 and 2031-40.

The 2012-17 time frame features projects that are largely on track to being completed, such as Ga. 347 widenings in South Hall, as part of what is called the MPO's Transportation Improvement Program, or TIP. The technical committee also recommended its OK of that document.

Much of the work on the plans was based on statistics, including population and work force numbers projected through 2040.

The long-range plan estimates that Hall County could have 561,000 people by 2040 and if little or no improvements are made between now and then, vehicles will be throttling nearly all of Hall's major roadways.

It features $2.1 billion in transportation projects, with funding coming from federal, state and local sources.

The primary local source is the county's special purpose local option sales tax, or SPLOST, which has to be approved by voters.

Carroll has said planners are allowed to consider SPLOST as a revenue source because it has had past success.

Officials held three public hearings on the 2040 plan and otherwise had a public comment period that ended July 13.

"When we met back in June, most of the comments we received were very supportive of the plan," Carroll said Wednesday. "Most of them were (focused on) can we move this project forward quicker?

"But as we told them ... we update this plan every four years, so we can relook at projects. And obviously, it's a given thing of the dollars and if we can afford to do (projects sooner)."

As Hall County works to complete the 2040 plan, it is also preparing for a statewide vote next summer on the 1 percent sales tax for transportation.

Srikanth Yamala, transportation planning manager for the MPO, and others have said the tax is another way to get much-needed projects financed and completed, possibly sooner.

Voters in 12 regions statewide will decide whether to approve the tax, which, if approved, would last for 10 years, with the 13-county Georgia Mountains region estimating it would reap about $1.25 billion.

Per the state's Transportation Investment Act of 2010, about $950 million of that amount would go toward regional projects in the Georgia Mountains while about $300 million would go to local governments to use as they see fit.

A panel working on a projects list for the Georgia Mountains region, which includes Hall, still has to make about $500 million in cuts to meet projected revenue amounts.

Officials at Wednesday's meeting said Hall County alone may need to cut as much as $150 million in projects from the $478 million that has been requested.

"This is a very delicate situation," Yamala said. "Most of the projects ... are very important to this area, but when push comes to shove, we need to make some deep cuts."