With its subtropical climate and proximity to Disney World, Orlando, Florida has become one of America’s fastest growing cities  —  but it has a big problem: It is one of the largest mass transit deserts in the United States, gridlocking vast swaths of its population in some of the country’s worst traffic.

Worse, when the region’s highway authority had the opportunity to invest in its mass transit infrastructure, money that could have gone to buses and trains was instead siphoned to a handful of the world’s most powerful banks, thanks to a complex municipal loan deal signed in the lead-up to the financial crisis more than a decade ago.

As that so-called interest-rate swap scheme continues to blow a hole in the highway authority’s budget, Orlando is now at the center of a landmark legal battle to unwind the transactions with UBS, JPMorgan, Citi, Morgan Stanley, and the Royal Bank of Canada. The suit is being brought by a retired county official and a former Democratic member of Congress. They say local officials were duped into an agreement by predatory Wall Street bankers who misled and entrapped them into signing away their communities’ economic future.