Posts about Earl Blumenauer
Roads
Blumenauer wouldn't raise gas tax, LaHood forgets about DC residents, Gray talks transit and voting rights
At Rail~Volution Tuesday, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood called for citizens to get involved in the ongoing transportation deadlock in Congress, but forgot that many in the audience have no voting representation. Mayor Vincent Gray, who spoke Monday, touted the city's transit investments and pushed for broader support for voting rights.
Photo by Clarence Eckerson, Jr.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) He said he'd like to see it indexed to inflation: Bill Millar, the outgoing president of the American Public Transit Association ("on Halloween, I turn into a pumpkin!"), said that before switching to a VMT fee, Congress needs to eliminate the federal guarantee, called "equity bonus," that states will get back at least a certain percentage of what they pay in gas tax receipts. (The GAO recently found that every state actually gets back more than it puts in, thanks to infusions from the general fund, but that hasn't stopped a lot of states from complaining that they don't get their fair share.)
"States that encourage more travel get more money back [under the equity bonus system]," Millar said, "so we've got to break that cycle too, to make sure instead it's an inverse relationship and states that give people more choice, more ways to travel, get more federal aid, not less federal aid."
Millar thinks the answer is simply to raise the gas tax. And he doesn't agree that it needs to wait. After all, the average price of gas in America went up by seven cents this week, he noted. But did anybody notice? "If you told Americans that, they wouldn't like it, but hey, it's gas, what can you do?" he said.
Either way, the U.S. has got to do something to avoid running up the deficit. Congress can continue to run up an infrastructure deficit, Blumenauer said, which will cost far more in the long run. Or the country can keep spending even the meager amount it does now on transportation maintenance and the Highway Trust Fund will run dry, requiring another general fund transfer, which adds to the deficit.
Why can't Congress move forward on any path out of the current fix? Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has been pretty open with his frustration lately. "The last election elected about 70+ new members of the House," he said at Rail~Volution. "About 30 or 40 of those people came here to do nothing. And that's what they've done."
Blumenauer noted that his first public event in Congress was a bipartisan press conference with LaHood, then a representative from Illinois. They had called for civility in Washington.
"In the days when I served with Earl and others, there was a good mix of policy and politics," LaHood said. "Unfortunately, today, the policy part has dropped off and it's all politics. It's all about the next election."
He fumbled his call to action, though. "Everyone in this room has a member of Congress; everyone has two senators," he said Just the day before, Mayor Vincent Gray had buttered up the Rail~Volution audience by talking about the Dulles rail extension and streetcars, and ended by asking the audience to push for democracy for DC so that residents there can be represented like everyone else as Congress debates the issues of the day.
For example, the jobs bill: That's what LaHood wanted everyone to call up their members of Congress about. Or passing a "five-year" [sic] transportation bill.
Bill Millar reminded the audience that transit activism isn't just about those big federal-level initiatives that get caught in big federal-level partisan gridlock. Eight cities and towns will vote on transit-related ballot initiatives in November. Millar noted that on the very same day last November when the American people voted in a new class of self-styled fiscal hawks, they also voted nearly three-to-one in favor of pro-transit measures "You can't rest when you get home!" Millar exhorted Rail~Volution attendees.
They gave him a standing ovation.In an ideal world, I would not raise the gas tax this year or next year. Come out of this recession, but put in place increases that are going to occur over the next 10 years; have that revenue stream. I would borrow against the revenue stream to take advantage of record low interest rates and a bidding climate like we've never seen, fund the president's infrastructure bank to help move some of these forward, and work toward replacing the gas tax.
Blumenauer reminded the audience that his state was the first to institute a gas tax, and now Oregon is working to get rid of it and replace it with a vehicle miles traveled fee.
Bicycling
Bike to work tomorrow, tour DC and Arlington this weekend
Tomorrow is Bike to Work Day. Bike to work!
I won't, since I'd probably take a nasty spill trying to bike down the stairs from my bedroom to my office (plus the handlebars and pedals would scuff up the walls), but I recommend it for the rest of you.
There are pit stops offering food, speeches, and more all across the region. Convoys will gather in a number of places and travel to Freedom Plaza in downtown DC.
Freedom Plaza will also host events to offically open the new Pennsylvania Ave bike lanes. Speakers include Mayor Fenty, Gabe Klein, Councilmembers Mary Cheh and Michael Brown, Congressman Earl Blumenauer, USDOT Undersecretary for Policy Roy Keinitz, FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff, Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman, and others.
Metro is reminding folks that Metrobuses have bike racks and bikes are allowed on trains except at rush hour. (How about also allowing them on reverse commutes outside the core during rush?)
Sunday is Bike DC, a noncompetitive and family-friendly bike ride. This year it should be more accurately called Bike Arlington And Some Of DC, as most of the route is in Arlington. It's a great chance to bike on the GW Parkway as well as the new Pennsylvania Avenue bike lanes.
This weekend is also WalkingTown and BikingTown DC, with 11 bike tours and over 100 walking tours of neighborhoods across the District.
Here's Arlington County Board Chairman Jay Fisette on Bike to Work Day:
Transit
Gorge yourself on streetcars
This week you can enjoy more streetcar goodness than ever before. A real streetcar is now open to the public at 9th and H, the streetcar technology seminar is tomorrow, and Tommy Wells is leading a streetcar tour Friday.
This morning, Mayor Fenty, DDOT Director Gabe Klein, Councilmembers Jim Graham and Jack Evans, and Congressman Earl Blumenauer introduced the streetcar at a press conference. It's now open to the public from 11 am to 7 pm today through Friday and 11-5 Saturday at City Center DC, the huge parking lot in the middle of downtown, near 9th and H Streets.
Mayor Fenty presents the streetcars. Photo by the author.
Above, left to right: A representative from the Czech embassy (whose country manufactured the streetcars), WMATA Assistant General Manager for Rail David Kubicek, Councilmember Jim Graham, Councilmember Jack Evans, Mayor Adrian Fenty, Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), and DDOT Director Gabe Klein.
WMATA brought the car down from Greenbelt. You can sit in the seats and try out the pushbutton-operated doors. It's on real tracks, of course, but with no overhead wires. DDOT is considering building a mockup of the wires as well.
Speaking of wires, tomorrow's Streetcar Technology Seminar could finally reveal some hard details of the various propulsion options. Panelists will discuss the state of the art in technologies and best practices in integrating streetcars into the streetscape.
The panel is Thursday, May 6th, 5-7 pm at the Renaissance Washington DC, 999 9th Street, NW, right near the streetcar itself.
Finally, if you don't check out the streetcar today or before the panel, check it out and then ride along its future route with Councilmember Tommy Wells. He's organizing a streetcar tour at 5:30 pm, followed by a trip on the Old Town Trolley along H Street and ending at SOVA Espresso & Wine, 1359 H Street, NE at 7.
Gabe Klein in front of DDOT's new streetcar logo. Photo by Eric Fidler.
Bicycling
Just put on a coat, already: Cyclists in a strange land
Imagine visiting a city where the populace steadfastly refused to wear sweaters or coats despite a cold climate.
Photo by Venerable Kalense.
You might tell your friends incredulous stories about how much people complain about being cold while ignoring an obvious solution. You might take pictures of the enormous three-story space heaters the city placed along its waterfront to let people enjoy the outdoors, and marvel at the ugliness and environmental waste of the practice. Why would the residents of this city endure such painful conditions at such cost to their city and their planet while ignoring such a simple alternative?
This sounds absurd, but scarcely more absurd than the way bicyclists talk about American cities. At Cities, Bicycles, and the Future of Getting Around, a panel discussion last week sponsored by the Brookings Institution, Congressman Earl Blumenauer posed what he called the "universalist bicycle mantra": "How many people, right at this moment, are stuck in traffic on their way to ride a stationary bicycle in a health club?"
Why, indeed, would people endure stifling traffic just to hop on another form of transportation that goes nowhere? How is this not similar to walking around outside without a coat while complaining of the chill? What are people thinking? Children can't get to school on their own, while childhood obesity skyrockets. Yet the evident solution to bicyclists, as simple as putting on the sweater, is simply to ride to school. Yet few do.
Musician David Byrne, author of The Bicycle Diaries, illustrated the absurdity every bicyclist sees in our cities through a slide show. He showed pictures of downtown Austin, Texas and Nashville, Tennessee, where giant highway overpasses soared above desolate landscapes below. He showed a streetscape from Houston, Texas, at 11:00 am, with only a single person visible across several blocks. "There was a group of people around the corner," he said. "They were the smokers." Some scenes could have depicted one of many American cities. "I'm not sure where this is," he said, showing a picture of large parking lots separating the occasional tall building. "Maybe Indianapolis." There's no life visible, "unless you consider the car a form of life."
Nevertheless, the average resident of these cities sees little unusual in these scenes. When driving, we see the broad brush of the buildings and the other cars; we tend not to notice a lack of pedestrians, especially when they are rare. When we travel on a bicycle, however, a city devoid of life seems utterly bizarre, and the populace's blithe acceptance of this status quo even stranger.
Buckminster Fuller's Harlem River Project.
Why can't we just put on the coats? Why can't people cycle in the numbers common in many European cities? Blumenauer and Byrne know why: bicycle infrastructure. We don't have enough of it, at least outside Blumenauer's hometown of Portland, Oregon. Its residents drive 30% less than in Houston, the Congressman said. They spend $2,500 less per year on transportation than the national average, and keep that money in the local economy instead of sending it overseas in oil payments. According to Blumenauer, Portland's bicycle share has increased 400% for less than the cost of one mile of freeway.
New York City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan revealed one of the most vexing absurdities of all: federal rules that make it extremely difficult if not impossible to build good bicycle infrastructure. For a city to build a bicycle lane requires a detailed air quality conformity analysis and a long checklist of approvals, she explained, and requires the involvement of the state DOT. "There are no national street designs that accommodate best practices" in bicycle lane design, she added.
DC's new protected, contraflow bike lane on 15th Street, NW is in no manual, added Sadik-Khan. Nor are bike boulevard markings, lanes painted with a color, or even bicycle signals. Wherever cities have built such projects, they're in spite of accepted industry standards. "My favorite 5-letter word is PILOT," she said; most of New York's greatest successes in bicycle infrastructure have been officially pilot programs, like the protected lane through Midtown Manhattan which increased bicycling by 46% in that area.
In Sadik-Khan's experience, getting approval to spend federal money on a project has typically been the most difficult part of the project, more even than the oft-vehement opposition from neighbors. Blumenauer, too, feels that opposition is not the major obstacle to progress, noting the over 180 members of the Congressional Bicycle Caucus. What are the obstacles, asked moderator Bruce Katz, Brookings Vice President and director of the Metropolitan Policy Program? Some people are "nervous about change," Blumenauer noted, but worse is the "dysfunctionality of the system."
Led by Sadik-Khan, the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) launched Cities for Cycling, an effort to create a new manual for street design that includes good bicycle infrastructure. They hope to make bicycle lanes, protected lanes, bike boulevards, bike signals and more official parts of a 21st-century version of the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices, the bible of traffic engineers that currently enforces design around cars instead of people.
Blumenauer has another prescription: Political organizing. He called on those who support bicycle infrastructure to defend officials like DDOT head Gabe Klein as he tries to build lanes like that on 15th Street or one on Pennsylvania Avenue near the Capitol that Blumenauer has been pushing for. If just five people email a council member about a bicycle lane, Klein added from the front of the audience, that can make an impact. (And now, we know that's true; your emails on Riggs and South Dakota triggered a change.)
If a small group can make a difference, the next questioner hoped to: He pointed out that Brookings itself has no bicycle parking at its Massachusetts Avenue headquarters, and a sign on the door prohibits bicycles inside. A law in New York just took effect requiring office buildings with cargo elevators to accommodate bicycles if the companies leasing space want to let employees bring bicycles into the office; Sadik-Khan noted that safe, indoor bicycle parking is the leading obstacle for people to bike to work. For his part, Katz promised to look into the issue. Local cyclists will be keeping an eye on their progress.
Cross-posted at Next American City.
Parking
Car-centric and walkable instincts vie within evolving Thomas
As society's view of the shape of our communities and the role of our streets has shifted, so have the views of our elected officials. In the 1920s, a public debate over the role of cars dedicated streets to cars alone. Communities passed laws mandating the suburban form of development. Today, we're reevaluating those decisions and their negative consequences, and with varying degrees of speed, our representatives are coming along for the ride.
Some, like Councilmembers Tommy Wells, Mary Cheh and Congressman Earl Blumenauer, lead the pack, but the average representative's views typically lag public opinion by a few years. Different communities sit at different points along this continuum as well. Cleveland Park seems more ready for walkable development at a major corner than is Tenleytown. H Street is eager for new commercial development, while Brookland is torn.
Exemplifying the uncertainty between 20th and 21st century urban views is Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr. Thomas recognizes the value of adding housing and retail opportunities next to our Metro stations, and supported the Brookland Small Area Plan despite fierce lobbying from some residents. At the same time, he travels by car, and still thinks about public space from a cars first standpoint. For example, he jokingly chided Mayor Fenty for choosing a smaller car over a muscular SUV.
On Tuesday, Thomas introduced a bill to provide specific tax breaks for gas stations, including to encourage the development of more. After all, the number of stations has plummeted almost 50% in recent years. Shouldn't our public policy help fight that trend? It sounded appealing enough at first that Councilmembers Mary Cheh (Ward 3), Phil Mendelson (at-large), Jim Graham (Ward 1), Jack Evans (Ward 2), and Yvette Alexander (Ward 7) signed on as co-sponsors.
However, this is actually very bad policy. It's not bad because we ought to squeeze all gas stations out of the District in an effort to force people to stop driving, as some hilariously allege when talking about this blog's views. Instead, it's bad because real market trends are driving the decline. People are driving less, which means we need fewer stations. Land in DC is becoming more valuable, making a mixed-use retail and condo development more appealing. Those are good trends for the city, and if the economy is moving in that direction, the last thing DC should do is spend money to swim against the tide and subsidize the stations.
Richard Layman, Ryan Avent, and Matthew Yglesias quickly jumped to criticize the bill. Plus, Avent pointed out, there are still plenty of stations. Gas prices here are still lower than in much of Montgomery County. We've lost some stations, but there's no sign of a crippling gas shortage. Stations in DC rarely seem crowded. The supply seems to meet the demand just fine. Are people really traveling outside DC to buy gas in huge numbers?
There is one unfortunate reason for keeping gas stations: the federal government allocates transportation spending proportional to the gas tax revenue collected by each state. That creates a perverse incentive for jurisdictions near state lines, like DC, to sell as much gas as possible. Congress ought to revise this formula in the upcoming transportation bill, to allocate based on actual driving total multimodal miles traveled or some better formula (good point, Ryan) rather than gas sales.
That Thomas bill received the most press, but is actually not the only pro-car-subsidy bill Thomas introduced Tuesday. He also submitted the Recreation Center and Public Library Municipal Parking Pilot Program Act of 2009, which would call on the Mayor to develop a plan for "municipal parking structures" at DC parks and libraries, including an analysis of costs and benefits, safety, "potential increase in public transportation", and surrounding jurisdictions' experiences. Profits from such structures would add to the parks or libraries budgets.
It's unlikely that such structures would make money, and even more unlikely they would increase public transportation use. Thomas may be thinking that numerous commuters from car-dependent parts of the city will drive to garages near Metro, and they'll make a profit. However, where exactly will these garages go? Most DC libraries sit on small lots in dense neighborhoods, and for a reason: they're closer to more residents that way. The new Benning library in Ward 7 will have only a small lot. The Shaw library, next to a Metro station, will have no parking at all. Do our parks have empty lots next to them for garages? Parks have lots of open land, but for recreation, not car storage.
Underground garages cost a bundle. Developers have been asking to reduce the amount of underground parking, not increase it, even in neighborhoods like U Street where it's hard to park evenings. If the developers of, for example, the Whitman-Walker project at 14th and S thought they could profit from another garage level, they wouldn't have asked for a special exception from parking requirements. For the Tenley-Janney PPP, where LCOR would have built underground parking, parking for the Janney school was the amenity LCOR would give the community in exchange for profits from residential sales, not the other way around.
Plus, what rates do we expect to charge? When most people talk about "municipal parking" they think of low rates. Montgomery County subsidizes its parking garages. Instead of making money for other uses, the County steers meter revenue into maintaining the garages, relieving drivers of paying the cost of their spaces. Metro's garages don't pay for themselves either. The bottom line is that providing parking is usually a money loser. Some cities do earn money from above-ground garages, but with the limited amount of land in DC and our height limit, almost any other use would generate even more tax revenue.
Of course, the bill only requires a study. Perhaps the study will prove that such parking structures would not make any money. Maybe that's why Councilmembers Cheh and Tommy Wells (Ward 6) cosponsored, along with Chairman Gray, Muriel Bowser (Ward 4), Kwame Brown (at-large), Graham, Marion Barry (Ward 8), and municipal parking aficionado Michael Brown (at-large).
It's right to criticize these silly policy proposals. However, it's unlikely that Thomas is introducing them out of a desire to reduce transit ridership or push driving. Instead, like many people in his area and of his generation, he sees the world primarily from a driving point of view. There's congestion? Build more roads. It's hard to park? Build more garages. Gas stations are closing? Retain them with incentives.
Those are natural instincts for many people. We must educate them about other ways of looking at policy. Nick Partee wrote,
[Greater Greater Washington is] getting people to think in a different way. ... The funny thing is, I didn't realize I was thinking in a car-centric way until I began reading and saying, "that's been me", about just wishing roads were wider. I didn't think about the systemic problems that lead to traffic and demand for wider roads.We must explain to Thomas and Michael Brown why their understandable eagerness for municipal garages is misguided. We must connect the dots for Cheh, Graham, Evans, Gray, and the others about how these proposals don't jibe with their avowed desire for more walkable and mixed-use communities on DC's scarce acres. Graham has already started to reexamine the parking biases he inherited from father while growing up. With time and persistence, more of our elected leaders will evolve along with the changing public view of our cities.
Preservation
On the calendar: St. E's, WABA gala, Anacostia cleanup, District 4
St. Elizabeths West Campus. Photo by Jaime Fearer.
Celebrate with WABA: WABA's tireless efforts to make our city safer for bicyclists depend on our support. You can support them and have a great time at their annual gala, on Saturday, March 21. The event will honor Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Congress's leading bicycle advocate. It's $80 for WABA members and $115 for non-members. Get your tickets here.
Support a trash-free Anacostia: The DC Council will hold a hearing on the bill to incentivize reusable bags on Wednesday, April 1. The hearing will start at 2 pm and continue into the evening to enable people to testify either in the afternoon or after work. To sign up, email or call Aukima Benjamin, abenjamin@dccouncil.us or 202.724.8062. Tell her when you'd like to testify. Never testified before? Just write out up to 3 minutes of comments and bring a few copies with you.
District Four-um: The Action Committee for Transit and the Sierra Club are organizing a forum for County Council candidates in Montgomery's District 4 on Wednesday evening, March 31st. Mark your calendars and look for more updates soon.
Bicycling
Blumenauer strikes back
Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) of Portland is the House's leading bicycle advocate and one of the most progressive thinkers on designing our transportation systems for pedestrians, bicycles, buses and streetcars as well as private automobiles.
Yesterday, Blumenauer (D-OR) said anti-bicycle Republicans in Congress, "don't get it". Those include Jim DeMint, who tried to strip all bicycle funding from the stimulus.
Streetfilms caught up with Blumenauer recently for an interview about livable streets, the stimulus, and the Obama movement:
Roads
SecDOT?
OK, some urbanism posting after all.
According to Politico, well-connected Democrats speculate that Congressmen Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) or Jim Oberstar (D-MN) could be named Secretary of Transportation in an Obama administration. Via WashCycle.
Transportation falls near the very bottom of Politico's list, but near the top of ours. And should Obama win (currently 98.9% likely), you can bet that bloggers interested in transportation will start campaigning for a good choice on this issue. (Blumenauer and Oberstar would both be great.)
How about New York City Transportation Commissioner Jeanette Sadik-Khan? I hear she's interested, and has done great work up in New York. Plus, then we could get back Tommy Wells' transportation and smart growth policy advisor, Neha Bhatt, who recently moved up to New York to work for Sadik-Khan.
Politics
New Partners: Earl Blumenauer and Mary Landrieu
Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Congressman Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, whose district includes Portland, joined in a roundtable discussion. Blumenauer had strong words for the Bush Administration on its transportation policy, especially the recent commission report, where language in favor of increasing the gas tax was cut out.
Blumenauer: the commission was set up by Congress because the Administration was dragging its feet and wouldn't agree with their own experts. So Congress tried again, but the Administration redacted a bunch of things like streetcars, which upset a lot of people including [his] conservative friend Paul Weyrich. The Secretary of Transportation said we really don't need to increase the gas tax, which we haven't increased since 1993. They really completely punted on this, and [Blumenauer thinks] even his Republican colleagues would say this is the most anti-infrastructure administration in history.
We have to cut loose of the theology and take advantage of the growing movement, so the reauthorization of TEA-4 [the transportation funding bill] is a "green TEA", a "strong TEA." Jim Oberstar [who was invited to the panel but could not attend] wanted to tell everyone at the conference that the reauthorization needs a powerful plank dealing with land use, because if we don't align land use and transportation policy, we're doomed to failure.
Landrieu: The governors and mayors have the political muscle to make this happen in the next Administration, by presenting this to candidates before the election and getting their commitment ahead of time. When Clinton became President, governors stood up in favor of education funding, and it became a national issue.
Blumenauer: We're in a situation now where local governments are four steps ahead of the Federal government. 768 cities aren't waiting for Kyoto and going ahead with their own climate change policies. City after city has put together regional plans for transit. One guy got really upset with [Blumenauer] when he talked about light rail in SLC in 1991, and now they're putting it in. There is $400 billion of investment along the rail line that won't even open until December. He challenged conference participants to mobilize their energy to put this on the national spotlight in the next six months. He hopes people can work with the debate commission to have a debate about infrastructure. "You can do that," he said, invite the Presidential candidates to a forum co-hosted by the truckers assocition, the bicyclists, the Sierra Club, the women's federated gardening association, transit...
Q: Why hasn't any Presidential candidate talked about this at any point in any of the debates? Blumenauer: the consultants who run the campaigns tell candidates not to get involved in this. If Al Gore had talked about what's in his mind or his heart, he wouldn't have had to worry about hanging chads. But the consultants don't know how to come into this issue. It's about more choice, not less choice. [Blumenauer suggests] a conference on livable communities for political pollsters, campaign managers, the people who shape and misshape the campaigns need to have a dose of what the conference participants deal with every day. At the core, there's a reason the Fed gov runs away from raising the gas tax or raising new funds for transportation, but in region after region people are stepping up to raise funds for local projects while people in Washington think it's toxic.
Landrieu: On an bill she carried to build better public facilities, she hired Republican pollster Frank Luntz to do some polling. He came back shocked, shocked to say that in Republican circles, with Chambers of Commerce, one of their major issues is livable communities. People want to live in places where the place knows what it wants to be, where they can walk to the theater or opera and their kids can have good ballfields. Luntz was surprised. Landrieu told Luntz, I wish you'd go tell the Republican caucus about this. There are some good folks, she said non-partisanly of the Republicans, but for many of them, for as soon as you talk about property anything they can't see past the end of their nose.
Blumenauer: The Federal government needs an urbanization policy in its foreign policy. The world population will be 9B by 2050, and the new 2.5B will all be in urbanized areas. We just passed the point where more than half the world population is in cities. Meanwhile the Republican colleagues zeroed out the urban program in USAID, which was only the cost of 4 cruise missiles. The CIA suggests that urban instability is one of the greatest threats to our long-term security. If these foreign nations develop the way we developed, it will provide such stress on water, air, and energy that we'll tip over the edge. If everybody in the world had the same resource footprint as the US, it would be the equivalent of 96 billion people. We have to figure out how people live together, move, use new energy technologies, manage water resources, and that must be a long-term plank in our foreign policy.
@ggwash
- Successful speed cameras require fair speed limits
- Amid scandal, don't lose sight of Gray's policy achievements
- Montgomery plans 160-mile, "gold standard" BRT system
- VDOT ignores own data, pushes widening I-66
- DC's parks are 5th best in the nation, says "Park Score"
- Bethesda gets new but terrible bike racks
- DC's divide need not be black and white
Greater Washington
District of Columbia
