Steve Pomerance

Last week I testified at a Colorado legislative committee hearing regarding HB19-1037, the “securitization” bill. This arcane but important concept emerged as many states shifted from supplying electricity through regulated monopolies to competitive systems, where customers and communities have choices as to where they get their power. As a result, these monopolies lost their captive markets, so their uncompetitive power plants built under the old regulated system no longer had customers. But the utilities had relied on the regulatory structure to provide a guaranteed revenue stream, so the states had to cover the utilities’ losses to avoid “regulatory takings,” where utilities are involuntarily deprived of something they relied upon. Securitization was a way to reduce the cost of solving this problem: Bonds were sold that had backing from a governmental entity. The proceeds paid off the utilities for their remaining investment in these plants; the bonds were then paid off by the r...

This year Boulder will be updating its Transportation Master Plan, so now is the time to focus on what needs to be done. The key fact is that we are past the inflection point on the hockey stick-shaped graph of congestion versus traffic. In other words, we’ve used up the capacity of our roads, so a little more traffic produces a whole lot more congestion. Just look at the huge numbers of cars stacked up for long stretches on Colo. 93, U.S. 36, Arapahoe Road, the Diagonal Highway, etc., in the morning or evening, and the jams during lunch hour in many places around town. Also, many local interior roads that had no real congestion some years ago now have delays through multiple signal cycles at many times during the day. Having just reviewed the current 2014 TMP, and having been involved in the original plan and its updates, as well as having studied some innovative strategies in other places, here are some suggestions for the city council and staff: First, set standards that you...