Transportation industry

DALLAS — A new issuer known as the Colorado Bridge Enterprise joins the December rush to market next week with $300 million of taxable and tax-exempt debt.

CHICAGO — Moody’s Investors Service has downgraded to Baa1 from A3 its rating on Cleveland-Hopkins International Airport, warning that the airport faces pressure from declining enplanements and airline revenue.

CHICAGO — Minnesota’s Counties Transit Improvement Board last week advanced plans for a $110 million bond sale by Hennepin County that would mark the first borrowing repaid by a special quarter-cent sales tax imposed in 2008 on the five-county Twin Cities region to support transit.

Ambac Assurance Corp. is close to reaching a settlement that would wipe away more than $500 million of exposure to revenue bonds issued by the Nevada Department of Business and Industry for the Las Vegas Monorail, according to its regulator Thursday.

CHICAGO — Hoping to capitalize on the lull in supply slated for this week, Wisconsin will take competitive bids Monday on $200 million of transportation revenue bonds in a deal that includes a mix of tax-exempt securities and taxable Build America Bonds.

DALLAS — Recommendations on how to finance improvements to Arkansas highways and local roads include $1.8 billion of revenue bonds supported by a dedicated 0.5% state sales tax.

California, New York, and Illinois are making a play for more than $1.2 billion of high-speed rail funding that was awarded to two Midwestern states whose Republican governors-elect plan to reject the grants.

States and localities pay for a much larger share of transportation and water infrastructure projects than the federal government, but in recent years the total amount of money spent on these projects by all levels of government has declined significantly, according to a 62-page report issued this week by the Congressional Budget Office.

Drivers on the Highway 520 floating bridge over Lake Washington could be paying tolls by spring.

With two newly elected Midwestern governors entering office on platforms opposing high-peed passenger train projects in their states, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is telling the federal government that he would be happy to take their money.

DALLAS — New Orleans had hoped to get up to $1 billion from leasing Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport to a private operator. But the recent decision by the city to terminate the privatization effort leaves it reconsidering an earlier proposal that included a possible transfer of the facility to Louisiana.

The New York State Thruway Authority approved a $1.1 billion budget Wednesday with no plans to issue general revenue bonds in 2011 for capital projects. Instead, the agency plans to roll over its $680 million of outstanding bond anticipation notes that are due in mid-2011.

New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority projected that lower returns on pension fund investments would widen out-year budget gaps, officials announced during a budget presentation Wednesday.

Wake County’s tax base is expected to grow by less than 1% in the current fiscal year, hampered by flat sales-tax revenue and continued declines in motor vehicle tax collections, the county’s top commissioner said this week.

WASHINGTON — Airport executives made one more attempt this week to convince Senate tax lawmakers to extend two popular bond-financing provisions beyond the end of this year so that airports can continue to borrow at lower rates.

Pittsburgh City Council President Darlene Harris Tuesday introduced a resolution that would direct additional parking-fee revenue into the city’s pension fund to help boost its funding level and ward off a potential state takeover.

CHICAGO — Indianapolis will lease its parking meters for 50 years to a private company under a controversial plan by Mayor Greg Ballard that was narrowly approved Monday by the city-county council.

The Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission recently named engineer Kevin Keith as director of the Missouri Department of Transportation.

The Federal Aviation Administration on Monday said it would fund the design and construction of a second new control tower at O’Hare International Airport as part of an $8 billion runway expansion.

DALLAS — Amid a flood of municipal issuance in the last six weeks of the year, the North Texas Tollway Authority will bring around $1.5 billion of debt to market, starting with nearly $500 million of tax-exempt refunding revenue bonds this week.