Infrastructure

SAN FRANCISCO — Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority’s senior and subordinate debt yesterday, citing declines in trade volumes at the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex.

Municipal infrastructure market participants believe that insufficient funding and the politicization of infrastructure are worse impediments to investments than corruption, earmark abuses, public policy instability, or poor creditworthiness of public authorities, according to a recent survey by KPMG LLP.

The state would privatize the Ohio Lottery and the Ohio Turnpike and use the money to fund a college scholarship program under a bill introduced last week by Sen. Kevin Coughlin.

The Michigan Department of Transportation last week put out a request for proposals seeking construction bids from companies interested in work on a new, $1.8 billion, bond-financed bridge across the Detroit River. The deadline for responses is March 17.

WASHINGTON — President Obama in his fiscal 2011 budget yesterday proposed a $4 billion infrastructure bank to fund or finance worthwhile transportation projects.

Goldman, Sachs & Co. has pulled out of a partnership with the Related Cos. to develop the 26-acre East and West Side Rail Yards in Manhattan — also known as the Hudson Yards — the parties confirmed yesterday.

CHICAGO — The Michigan Department of Transportation last week significantly cut its five-year construction plan, warning the state faces the loss of $2.4 billion in federal aid through 2014 because it lacks matching dollars.

DALLAS — With a statewide moratorium on new private toll projects still in place after more than two years, the Texas Transportation Commission is planning a bypass around that financial barrier to leverage existing funds.

The Arkansas Blue Ribbon Committee on Highway Finance has urged tax increases and a diversion of general fund revenue to finance highway construction and maintenance needs estimated at $19.1 billion over the next 10 years. Current sources would provide only $4.1 billion over the period.

Without tax increases to finance transportation infrastructure, tolling on large portions of the nation’s interstate highway system will be inevitable, Citi managing director Ronald Marino said on Friday.