Transportation industry

CHICAGO - St. Louis' Metro has settled on restructuring plans for two pieces of its debt as the transit agency seeks to chip away at a series of operational and capital challenges that prompted a two-notch downgrade earlier this year and drove steep service cuts.

DALLAS - The North Texas Tollway Authority expects to issue $620 million of toll revenue bonds and $740 million in other forms of debt to design and build a new toll highway in western Dallas County, officials said.

WASHINGTON — Arlington County, Va., is suing state and U.S. transportation officials to stop a high-occupancy toll lanes project on Interstate 395 and I-95, alleging an "arbitrary and capricious" failure to do adequate research on environmental and other impacts.

Bills recently introduced by key members in the House and Senate would set up a major deterrent to banks and other equity investors seeking to force issuers to fork over termination payments for lease-back deals. The prospect of such deal terminations threatened to jeopardize the fiscal conditions of transit agencies and electrical utilities last year after credit rating downgradings of insurers on the deals.

New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority is no longer on watch list for a possible downgrade of its transportation revenue bonds, Moody's Investors Service said yesterday. The rating agency affirmed the credit's A2 rating and said its outlook was stable.

CHICAGO - In a larger version of its spring general obligation sale, Wisconsin is planning to competitively sell $423 million of new-money GO bonds on Wednesday in a deal divided into two series with bidders able to submit tax-exempt and taxable bids on the later maturities.

DALLAS - The Texas Transportation Commission will issue the state's largest tranche of Build America Bonds to date, with $1.1 billion of the taxable debt scheduled to price on Wednesday.

DALLAS - Fitch Ratings has downgraded $120 million of taxable revenue bonds sold in 2001 for a car rental facility at Houston Intercontinental Airport. Citing declining coverage ratios, Fitch cut the rating on the debt one notch to A-minus from A.

An arbitration panel last week awarded unionized transit workers at New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority an 11.3% raise over three years. The raises for Transit Workers Union Local 100 workers will cost an estimated $350 million, the MTA said.

Few people with Richard Ravitch’s resume would call themselves a student, but with the state facing a $2.1 billion current-year budget deficit, New York’s lieutenant governor has hit the state’s books.

SAN FRANCISCO — After collecting more than $104 million from the Bay Area Toll Authority in return for terminating a swap agreement, Ambac Financial Services LLC sued the agency this week seeking an additional $50 million.

CHICAGO — With a shakily balanced fiscal 2010 budget now in place, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn turned his attention yesterday after seven months in office to putting his stamp on a major bond-issuing state agency with the appointment of new board members to the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority.

Florida officials are disputing the way the federal government is calculating how the state spends transportation funds under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

A plan to increase Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority fares by 20% is now off the table as officials said they will wait for an outside review of the agency's finances before asking mass transit users to pay more on buses and trains.

Gov. Ted Strickland last week issued an executive order creating an automobile support council to help Ohio’s declining automobile industry.

The Oklahoma Transportation Commission has authorized an agreement with the Oklahoma Capitol Improvement Authority to issue $300 million to finance the Oklahoma Department of Transportation’s eight-year construction work plan.

The Texas Department of Transportation has awarded a contract to build a park on top of a below-grade connector roadway in downtown Dallas. Project financing includes $20 million from the city’s $1.2 billion general obligation bond program approved by voters in 2006.

DALLAS - Officials at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport today will brief the Dallas City Council's finance committee on the airport's plans to refund up to $600 million of outstanding debt in the next two months.

New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority faces a $9.91 billion funding gap in its next five-year capital plan, according to a draft released yesterday.

DALLAS - Denver is preparing up to $250 million of bonds, mainly to pay for short-term improvements while sketching plans for a major redevelopment of its landmark terminal building over the next five years.