Transportation industry

WASHINGTON — The Georgia Department of Transportation is poised to launch a public-private partnership initiative it hopes will encompass 17 projects, including a multimodal passenger terminal in Atlanta, connector highways, toll roads and privatized highway rest stops.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick Friday announced five members to serve on the board of the state's new transportation bonding authority, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation.

New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority will be looking across the pond for ideas on how to improve service and management and how to address its capital needs.

The Texas Department of Transportation is proposing $1.1 billion for the widening of heavily congested sections of Interstate 35 between Austin and Dallas using more than half of the so-called Proposition 12 bonds authorized by lawmakers.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission Thursday evening re-filed its application to the Federal Highway Administration to implement tolls on Interstate 80.

DALLAS — Amid a continuing plunge in revenues, transportation planners in the Phoenix area are cutting nearly $7 billion from a $16 billion freeway program financed through revenue bonds.

The $700 million of bonds to finance a professional basketball arena at the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn could be sold and the proceeds placed into escrow as legal challenges to the project are resolved, an official at the Empire State Development Corp. said yesterday.

The Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge, the Bay Area Toll Authority’s busiest bridge, was expected to reopen today after it was closed earlier in the week when five tons of recently replaced steel supports fell into traffic and damaged cars.

DALLAS — The Arizona Department of Transportation estimates it would have to fire up to 60% of its workforce, halt all non-emergency maintenance, and close all highway rest stops under a legislative plan to close a $2 billion budget shortfall.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport officials announced Monday that the airport received $34 million in stimulus funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to help pay for construction of the new Maynard Holbrook Jackson Jr. International Terminal.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey plans to competitively price $300 million of tax-exempt bonds today in what it expects to be its last bond offering of the year.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority may delay payments to its pension fund if a New York State deficit-closing proposal reduces funds available to repay revenue anticipation notes, the MTA said yesterday.

SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco International Airport last week used a tender offer to refinance as tax-exempt about $120 million of private-activity bond debt that had been subject to the alternative minimum tax, making it the first airport to successfully pull off the maneuver.

CHICAGO — The Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission enters the market beginning today with its second large financing in recent months as it sells $300 million of mostly taxable Build America Bonds, the final tranche of borrowing planned under a $2.2 billion road building program.

National Public Finance Guarantee Corp. is sharing what it knows about municipal bonds.

Senate transportation leaders are pushing for a six-month extension of programs that provide funding to states and metropolitan areas for highways, bridges, and other surface transportation projects, Environment and Public Works Committee chairwoman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., told officials gathered in California over the weekend.

WASHINGTON — The public sector should provide 55% or 65% of high-speed rail costs through gasoline and other taxes, Richard Harnish, executive director of the Chicago-based Midwest High Speed Rail Association, said at a conference here Friday.

CHICAGO — The Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Airports Commission enters the market as soon as tomorrow with its first sale this year, a $156 million refunding that should generate about $7 million in savings to help the agency as it manages through the recession and its impact on air travel and the airlines.

WASHINGTON — The development of a 17,000-mile national high-speed rail network would cost $600 billion, or $30 billion per year through 2030, Andy Kunz, president and chief executive officer of the U. S. High Speed Rail Association, said here at a conference yesterday.

BRADENTON, Fla. — Top Florida officials are considering calling a special session of the Legislature in early December to solve problems that could prevent the state from getting federal stimulus funds for a variety of rail projects.