Transportation industry

DALLAS - With construction and fuel costs soaring, metro Denver's Regional Transportation District is considering five options for covering a $2.3 billion funding shortfall for the FasTracks rail system.

Even as Chicago prepares to open a new runway at O’Hare International Airport, the head of the Federal Aviation Administration last week said future air traffic demand will require much more flight capacity in the region.

ATLANTA - Once hailed as a means to spur economic development in the Greenville, S.C.-area, the Southern Connector toll road has failed to live up to expectations and the debt issued by the Connector 2000 Association to build the road is now in jeopardy.

House Democrats are working on a continuing resolution to extend federal spending at fiscal 2008 levels through March 6, including a potential stopgap measure to continue for five months the Federal Aviation Administration's authority to provide grants that are sometimes used in conjunction with tax-exempt bonds for airport projects.

Indiana has agreed to reimburse the private operator of the Indiana Toll Road after the state waived toll fees along parts of the roadway last week to ease traffic congestion resulting from storms that flooded sections of other major roadways.

DALLAS - Rapidly growing Williamson County, Tex., hired a public relations firm to help it gather opinions on a proposal to expand a heavily used road and to articulate plans for all road projects.

Arkansas transportation officials said the state kept sufficient money on hand to make its semiannual debt payments on $575 million of outstanding highway bonds even if Congress had not shifted $8 billion into the rapidly shrinking federal Highway Trust Fund.

New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority will not restructure its variable-rate demand bonds for the time being despite spikes in interest rates last week, the MTA said yesterday.

CHICAGO - The Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission voted last week to drop its first-of-a-kind plan to use $700 million of private-activity bonds under a federal pilot program to repair 802 bridges in favor of issuing Garvee bonds after the original plan grew too expensive due to the credit crunch.

WASHINGTON - Debt service coverage on highway user revenue fund bonds should remain more than sufficient, and the ratings of those bonds should remain stable, even as gasoline prices have spiked to record highs, causing people to drive fewer miles over the past year, a Standard & Poor's report said.

New Jersey officials continue to spar over whether revenue from potential toll increases can be used to help finance a new passenger rail tunnel that will run between Newark and Manhattan.

CHICAGO - The St. Louis Metro transit agency failed to adequately control the costs of its Cross County Extension project or ensure the viability of the developers' proposed design, and issued flawed bid documents, contributing to $136 million in cost overruns on the $550 million project, according to a Missouri audit released this week.

DALLAS - A year after agreeing to the largest debt issuance in its history, the North Texas Tollway Authority is rethinking plans to expand its system amid unprecedented market turmoil.

The Miami-Dade County Budget and Finance Committee last week recommended that elected officials authorize the issuance of up to $1.9 billion of aviation revenue bonds to be sold in one or more series.

CHICAGO - While the Regional Transportation Authority's service boards in Illinois are benefiting from an increase in the sales tax rate won earlier this year, the agency warned this week that they face $190 million in additional fiscal "pressures" as they craft their 2009 budget amid rising fuel and maintenance costs, a drop in state funding, and sluggish sales tax collections.

The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority will not take immediate action on five swaptions involving a Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. subsidiary while, at the same time, officials continue to evaluate underwriting proposals on an $800 million refunding deal.

State and regional transportation agencies will turn increasingly to public-private partnerships as a financing mechanism for highway, bridge, and transit projects as federal grants grow less certain in the near future, and as Congress searches for stable funding for the long-term, market participants and officials said this week at a P3 conference here.

Gary Ridley, director of the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, has praised Congress for providing an $8 billion solution to the solvency crisis facing the federal Highway Trust Fund.

The long-stalled Moynihan Station project in Manhattan needs to increase transportation capacity by expanding the number of tracks and platforms, New York Gov. David Paterson said last week.

WASHINGTON - Maryland Transportation Authority officials said yesterday that they plan to bring $425 million of grant anticipation revenue vehicle bonds to market in the coming weeks now that Congress and the Bush administration are moving toward enacting legislation that will transfer $8 billion of general funds to the beleaguered federal highway trust fund.