Residents have a chance to voice their input on a plan that will help guide major road construction projects in the area over the next 25 years.

The Northeastern Pennsylvania Metropolitan Planning Organization has released a draft of its 2040 Long Range Transportation Plan.The organization is responsible for doling out federal funding for road projects in Carbon, Monroe, Pike and Schuylkill counties.The Long Range Transportation Plan identifies road and bridge projects that could be candidates for funding over the next 25 years, according to David Bodnar, director of the Carbon County Office of Planning and Development, who sat on the steering committee for the project."A long-range plan is a vision for the coming years," Bodnar said. "The plan itself is a guide to get us going."Residents can review the plan until Feb. 22, and offer their input for the final draft, which will be released later this year. A public meetingwill be held at 9:30 a.m. Thursday at the Carbon County Courthouse Annex before the commissioners' regular meeting."They want the people to take a look at it and see if they agree with the vision, if they agree with the improvements, or if they see something else they feel should be done," Bodnar said.The report includes 44 projects which could be funded between 2027 and 2040. The committee had to cut down a list of 450 projects to get to that number, based on the amount of funding they believe will be available.Just because a project isn't on the list does not mean that it won't receive funding during that time. The potential projects start in 2027 because a 12-year plan with dozens of projects is already set to be funded.The Long Range Transportation plan includes the intersection of Route 115 and Weir Lake Road in Chestnuthill Township; traffic congestion relief on Route 309 in Tamaqua; and the intersection of Routes 309 and 895 in West Penn Township.A copy of the draft plan is available digitally at nepa-alliance.org.