Transportation industry

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.

Transportation systems throughout the U.S. are looking to address a backlog of needed capital projects, yet at the same time volatility in the municipal bond market and a changing investor base have made financing transportation infrastructure more challenging.

WASHINGTON - States are weighing whether to modify their long-term transportation finance plans because of questions about the future sustainability of the beleaguered federal highway trust fund, after some already were forced to shelve $1 billion of grant anticipation bond deals due to unfavorable market conditions.

DALLAS - With tax revenue falling dramatically, the Arizona State Transportation Board will examine its bonding capacity today with a view toward scaling back projects already on the drawing board.

New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine yesterday announced his plan to increase transportation infrastructure projects and school construction over the next six to eight months to support job growth and help bolster the state's softening economy.

DALLAS - The Louisiana State Bond Commission yesterday decided to delay until next year a scheduled forward-purchase sale of $485 million of gasoline and fuel tax revenue bonds to avoid a swap-termination fee of up to $25 million.

DALLAS - Using state loan guarantees as a new form of debt insurance, the North Texas Tollway Authority yesterday agreed to build another $1.3 billion turnpike, despite misgivings by some board members about how the financing might affect future projects.

Nine members have been appointed to the state’s Southeast Regional Airport Authority, which will determine if Louisiana should take over New Orleans’s Louis Armstrong International Airport.

CHICAGO - Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Illinois State Toll Highway Authority officials yesterday unveiled a $1.8 billion, bond-financed plan to build new interstate-to-interstate interchanges and add bus and ride-sharing commuter lanes to the busiest stretches of the 286-mile toll system.

The Chicago Transit Authority last week proposed raising light-rail train and bus fares by 25 cents and monthly passes to $90 from $75 to help cover a looming deficit due to poor tax collections amid rising expenses for employees and fuel.

DALLAS - With the credit market still awaiting a thaw, the North Texas Tollway Authority approved a plan to complete the takeout of $3.5 billion of bond anticipation notes by the Nov. 19 deadline.

A committee of the Milwaukee County Board last week rejected county Executive Scott Walker’s plan to include $500,000 in the $1.4 billion 2009 budget to hire consultants to help craft a proposal to privatize Mitchell International Airport.

CHICAGO - When General Motors Corp. last week lobbied Detroit's two pension funds to invest in its prominent downtown headquarters to help raise $500 million, some saw it as an illustration of the severity of the fiscal pressures facing the U.S. auto industry.