MassPike Pegs Cost of Repairing Western Roadway at $544M

Keeping Massachusetts’ main east-west roadway in a state of good repair will cost $544 million through 2017, according to a recent review of the 123-mile Western Turnpike.

Along with the infrastructure demands, the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, which oversees the Western Turnpike and the Boston-area Metropolitan Highway System, could end fiscal 2009 on June 30 with no unrestricted cash reserves. The authority may need to deplete its coffers to address immediate capital repair work, according to MassPike executive director Alan LeBovidge.

Officials presented MassPike’s board on Wednesday with a detailed list of the toll road’s capital needs over nine years. Bridge repair, roadway upgrades, and other infrastructure needs are estimated to cost $68 million per year, for a total price tag of $544 million. The authority yesterday posted the presentation on its Web site.

“I had asked our chief engineer to make a presentation to the board updating them on what the capital needs are on the [Western Turnpike], which are basically bridge repair and repaving and other smaller stuff,” LeBovidge said. “But yes, it’s really a lot of money.”

Capital reinvestment on the roadway will total $18 million in fiscal 2009 and increase to $28 million and $36.5 million in fiscal 2010 and fiscal 2011, respectively, according to the last annual report for the Western Turnpike. Those allocations fall below the average $68 million yearly cost to keep the toll road in good repair.

Bridge deck replacements and other improvements will cost $180 million from now until 2017, followed by $137 million of repavements and other roadway upgrades, according to the presentation. The authority pegs Western Turnpike’s asset value at $2.5 billion.

As of now, state officials will not allocate recent federal funding made available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to the agency to help address capital needs on the Western Turnpike and the MHS.

“We have been notified by [the Executive Office of Transportation] that the MTA will not receive any stimulus monies for shovel-ready projects,” LeBovidge told board members on Wednesday. “So there will not be any federal aid to pay for projects on our existing capital project list.”

MassPike has $162 million of outstanding Western Turnpike debt that will retire in 2017. Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service rate the bonds A-plus and Aa3, respectively. Standard & Poor’s does not rate the credit.

In addition, MassPike has $2.1 billion of outstanding MHS debt, which primarily helped finance the Central Artery Project, more commonly known as the Big Dig. Fitch rates $1.2 billion of MHS senior bonds BBB-plus and its $960 million of MHS subordinate debt BBB. The senior and subordinated bonds are on Fitch’s negative watch.

Moody’s assigns a Baa2 to the senior-lien bonds and a Baa3 to the subordinate debt with a developing outlook.

Both Fitch and Moody’s cite a need for additional revenue to help the authority’s tight finances. In October, Moody’s downgraded MassPike’s MHS debt, and stated that — along with inaction on toll increases and failure to restructure debt — “continued depletion of existing unrestricted reserves would place further downward pressure on the rating.”

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