Transportation industry

WASHINGTON — Virginia is reviewing its public-private partnership program to ensure the state can most efficiently leverage private funds as its transportation revenues have dwindled amid the economic recession.

WASHINGTON — The House was poised late Thursday to consider an amendment to the tax-extenders package that would slightly alter the distribution of nearly $1 billion to states for transportation projects.

CHICAGO — The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority plans in early to mid-June to sell $400 million of refunding bonds as it moves to shift a chunk of synthetic floating-to-fixed-rate debt to a traditional fixed-rate structure to reduce bank and liquidity risks.

LOS ANGELES — The first public-private partnership project under a program championed by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently cleared a major procedural hurdle, though questions remain over whether the Presidio Parkway project is the right way to use P3s.

An analysis of the Georgia Department of Transportation’s first public-private partnership outlines significant economic development benefits for the Atlanta metropolitan area and the state as a whole.

A Michigan House subcommittee last week approved three bills that would authorize a bond-issuing regional authority to oversee a 400-mile mass transit system running throughout the Detroit area.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority could sell revenue anticipation notes to fill a hole caused by New York’s withholding of subsidies, officials said at a finance committee meeting yesterday. This month the state has withheld $275 million of certain aid payments to the MTA, officials said.

A group of senators led by Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., were poised late yesterday to introduce legislation that would provide public transit systems across the country with $2 billion of emergency operating funds to help ease the strain on their budgets.

ALAMEDA, Calif. — Murphy ­McCalley has joined Bank of America Merrill Lynch as a director in its transportation group, the firm announced Friday.

CHICAGO — With Illinois behind a record $290 million in payments to the Regional Transportation Authority, the agency is awaiting Gov. Pat Quinn’s signature on a bill that would allow it to issue an additional $140 million of taxable cash-flow notes to keep Chicago-area trains and buses running.

Eleven Northeast states are asking the Federal Railroad Administration to cover $15 million of an $18.8 million study they hope will help improve and expand high-speed rail service in their corridor.

New Jersey legislators last week passed a resolution that urges the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to develop funding and engineering solutions to increase the Bayonne Bridge’s air clearance and accommodate larger vessels.

WASHINGTON — Congressional committees have set a July 4 target date for the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill to be signed into law, but lawmakers must clear a few obstacles including their differences over a bond-related provision before the legislation can be finalized.

DALLAS — The Louisiana State Bond Commission gave its approval yesterday to refunding and restructuring $300 million of fuel-tax bonds issued in May 2009 to finance a portion of a constitutionally mandated transportation program.

Fitch Ratings has downgraded its underlying rating for the Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency’s toll revenue bonds to BBB-minus from BBB.

CHICAGO — The Michigan House is expected to vote Tuesday on a bill that would advance a controversial $2 billion bond-funded bridge spanning the busy Detroit-Canada trade route.

The Atlanta BeltLine project last week was selected as the Best 2009 Bond Deal at the Council of Development Finance Agencies’ 2010 Annual Development Finance Summit in Portland, Ore.

The Cincinnati City Council last week passed a measure to issue up to $64 million in bonds to advance a long-planned $128 million project to build a streetcar.

Chicago is advancing measures to help finance the next phase of its $8 billion runway expansion at O’Hare International Airport.

Transportation stakeholders are opposed to a provision in a draft climate-change bill introduced in the Senate that would generate more revenue based on emissions from the sector than would be re-invested in infrastructure or transportation projects.