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."
Read the full story: MTA Sells Storm Bond
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Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.
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Rutgers University, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
One Hundred Miles
University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS)
Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY)
The Architects Foundation
City of Cambridge
The Pocatello Development Authority
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