After incurring $4.8 billion in repair costs from superstorm Sandy, NY's MTA had a hard time buying insurance. It's utilizing an innovative tool - called a catastrophe bond - to help prepare financially for a damaging storm surge in the near future.
"The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has sold the first bond designed to protect specifically against storm surges, assembling a $200 million protection plan against the greatest source of damage from superstorm Sandy," report Katy Burne and Ted Mann.
"The MTA's traditional avenues for insurance coverage dried up after Sandy, with damage from the storm making it 'exceedingly difficult for [it] to obtain insurance,' MTA Chairman Thomas Prendergast said in a statement."
"The use of the new financing tool—known as a catastrophe bond—is one of the clearest signs yet of how Sandy has driven up the cost of running the MTA and how its leaders are moving to adapt to the risk of future storms."
FULL STORY: MTA Sells Storm Bond
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This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
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Transportation Research & Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University
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