Infrastructure

Detroit businessman Manuel Maroun, who owns the only bridge spanning the busy trade route between Detroit and Canada, has bought a piece of land that could complicate a government plan to build a second bridge across the river.

This week’s largest financings include deals in the health care, transportation, and environmental sectors that are expected to price as part of an estimated $5.44 billion in volume, according to Ipreo LLC and The Bond Buyer.

New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority will begin consolidating internal departments and maximizing its resources to produce savings and make the system more efficient, agency chairman and chief executive officer Jay Walder announced Friday.

CHICAGO — The Illinois Finance Authority gave preliminary approval this week to the Seneca I-80 Railport Development LLC’s proposed $576 million issue. The move advances development efforts for the proposed freight-transfer facility that is seeking an allocation of tax-exempt, private activity bonding under the federal government’s $15 billion pilot program.

WASHINGTON — More than $200 million of toll revenue bonds issued by the Connector 2000 Association Inc. for a 16-mile toll road in Greenville County, S.C., defaulted on Jan. 1, in what sources said is the first public-private partnership default in the state.

SAN FRANCISCO — The Las Vegas Monorail Co., which has more than $600 million of municipal bonds outstanding, sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Wednesday.

The Bay Area Toll Authority’s oversight committee on Wednesday approved toll hikes on the seven state owned toll bridges in the San Francisco Area. The toll hikes must now be approved by the Oakland-based agency’s full board.

The Obama administration is working with Congress on a multi-year transportation bill that it expects will cost between $400 billion to $500 billion, Transportation Department Secretary Ray LaHood said at a conference here yesterday.

New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to repeat a novel approach to accessing low rates at a time when liquidity costs makes traditional variable-rate financing pricey.

CHICAGO — Faced with rising debt service costs and sagging tourism revenues, the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority will ask Illinois lawmakers who return to work today for the power to restructure its debt and extend a state debt-service subsidy.