Transportation industry

A lawyer for two Dulles Toll Road users said his clients are still reviewing whether to appeal a Richmond circuit court judge’s decision to dismiss a lawsuit challenging Virginia’s transfer of the road from the state’s Department of Transportation to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.

WASHINGTON - The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority sought court action yesterday to prevent it from having to make a $43 million termination payment on a sale-leaseback deal guaranteed by American International Group Inc. Meanwhile, House committee leaders pushed for federal assistance for more than 30 of the nation's largest transit agencies "at risk of default and financial collapse" because of similar deals.

WASHINGTON - State and local government officials told congressional lawmakers in two separate hearings yesterday that they need billions of dollars of direct aid from the federal government to combat the fiscal challenges they are facing.

The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority board is expected this week to name Jeffrey S. Dailey to fill the executive director's spot left vacant by the departure of Brian McPartlin.

A bill pending in Michigan Legislature would allow for the creation of a nonprofit street railway company — with the authority to issue bonds — to further an effort to build a $103 million light-rail system in Detroit.

New Jersey officials are working on issuing smaller tranches of New Jersey Transportation Trust Fund Authority debt than in previous years to better match current market conditions.

Despite declining toll revenues, the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority is considering bond issues to expand three turnpikes, officials said.

CHICAGO - The Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission and its finance team are watching the market closely to decide whether or not to proceed as soon as next week with Missouri's long-planned, first-time issuance of Garvee bonds in a $150 million sale.

State transportation officials are calling for Congress to pass legislation next year that would remove the $15 billion federal volume cap on private-activity bonds for transportation financing, authorize the issuance of tax-credit bonds to fund surface transportation programs, and distribute of 90% of federal transportation funds to the states.

New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority is considering terminating two leaseback transactions and replacing or restructuring the collateral on another following the downgrade of American International Group, which had insured the transactions, the agency said yesterday at a finance committee meeting.

WASHINGTON - The Treasury Department must take the place of American International Group Inc. as guarantor of transit agency sale-leaseback deals to avoid "financial disaster" for state and local governments, a group of lawmakers warned Treasury and Federal Reserve officials yesterday.

SAN FRANCISCO - As the auction-rate securities market meltdown raged this spring, San Francisco International Airport rushed to restructure hundreds of millions of dollars of ARS with variable-rate demand obligations, trying to beat other issuers to the market before liquidity dried up.

WASHINGTON — State officials and lawmakers Friday were holding emergency meetings and pressing the Treasury Department to rescue public transit deals facing billions of dollars of payments.

DALLAS - With a deadline less than a month away, the North Texas Tollway Authority managed to complete the takeout of $3.5 billion of bond anticipation notes with the sale of $425 million of revenue bonds last week.

In separate actions Tuesday, Fitch Ratings took a negative view of both the seaport and airport revenue bonds of the Northern Mariana Islands Commonwealth Ports Authority.

The California Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority on Wednesday authorized the issuance of up to $20 million of clean renewable energy bonds for the California Department of Transportation.

CHICAGO - Despite reservations about a still-weak market and uncertainty surrounding the federal highway trust fund, Ohio this week sold $375 million of grant anticipation revenue vehicle bonds, its largest Garvee deal ever.

Miami-Dade County commissioners, meeting Tuesday, authorized up to $1.9 billion of aviation revenue bonds to continue work on Miami International Airport’s $6.2 billion capital improvement program.

The National Conference of State Legislatures is pushing for a temporary increase in the federal gasoline tax as part of its pitch to Congress on how the nation's highway funding program should be revamped. But states like Texas do not support a hike in the tax because they already get a disproportionately lower amount of funding from the program compared to the tax revenue they contribute.

WASHINGTON - A Richmond circuit court judge for the second time dismissed a lawsuit challenging Virginia's planned transfer of the Dulles Toll Road from the state's Department of Transportation to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. The MWAA is slated to oversee the $5.2 billion Metrorail extension to Dulles International Airport that will be partly financed by $2 billion of tax-exempt bonds.