Transportation industry

State, regional, and local transportation toll authorities will steadily issue debt as the economy recovers in order to pay for infrastructure maintenance and construction projects that cannot be funded from state and federal coffers, Moody’s Investors Service predicted in a report issued late last week.

The New Hampshire Turnpike System this week will come to market with its first new-money issuance in 10 years with a $218.1 million revenue bond transaction that includes taxable Build America Bonds.

Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas and New York Gov. David Paterson last week announced that officials will replace the Lake Champlain Bridge after engineers said the 80-year-old span can’t be rehabilitated.

The Port of Seattle’s commissioners Tuesday agreed to move forward with a solicitation for financial advisory services.

CHICAGO — An already cash-strapped Illinois would subsidize debt service payments on $166 million of borrowing by the state’s Regional Transportation Authority under a plan announced by Gov. Pat Quinn yesterday to stave off fare hikes proposed by the Chicago Transit Authority.

The Chicago Transit Authority’s proposed $1.3 billion 2010 budget received the endorsement of a local government finance watchdog group for tackling its revenue shortfall with cuts and fare increases.

WASHINGTON — Market participants are pushing for states or the federal government to take a “programmatic” rather than a piecemeal or project-by-project approach to financing infrastructure through public-private partnerships.

DALLAS — As the nation’s port business drifts at low tide, Corpus Christi, Tex., is preparing for better days with a $250 million mixed-use container terminal financed through a public-private partnership.

DALLAS — A decade after Austin-Bergstrom International Airport opened for business, it is keeping the light on for a super low-fare carrier that might want to use its no-frills South Terminal.

The Puerto Rico Public Private Partnerships Authority will pull together a team of advisers to assist it in implementing P3 transactions and releasing requests for proposals related to specific assets.

DALLAS — Public transit agencies will be hard-pressed to maintain existing systems while extending service to new areas during difficult economic times without additional sources of revenue.

Bonds from the Southern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority will not be affected by a workers’ strike that halted Philadelphia’s subway and bus service beginning early Tuesday morning.

bus system.Prendergast comes to the MTA from the South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority, Vancouver’s mass transit system, also known as TransLink. He served as CEO since July 2008. Prior to TransLink, he had helped oversee infrastructure projects at Parsons Brinckerhoff Inc..

DALLAS — The $8 billion in federal stimulus funds earmarked for high-speed rail development in the United States is the first installment of a program that could reshape the nation’s transportation options as significantly as has the interstate highway system.

DALLAS — The Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act program is likely here to stay, though it is unclear how much funding it will receive in the future, federal officials said here yesterday.

The Bay Area Toll Authority this week began public hearings on proposed toll increases on seven state-owned toll bridges in the San Francisco Bay Area.

CHICAGO — The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority will head into the market this fall with the sale of up to $300 million of toll-backed revenue bonds in a deal that will mark the final financing planned for its five-year-old $6 billion capital program.

Pushing principal and interest costs out to future years has weakened the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s balance sheet, with an independent report released yesterday estimating the mass transit agency faces a cumulative structural deficit of $1.19 billion by fiscal 2014.

Kentucky’s appointees to a bi-state authority that will determine how to finance the $4.1 billion Ohio River Bridges Project have been announced by Gov. Steve Beshear and Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson.

SAN FRANCISCO — Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa last week proposed borrowing to speed construction on $20 billion of mass transit projects approved by Los Angeles County voters last year.