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TODAY Thursday 5 March 1998 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
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TODAY Thursday 5 March 1998 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
TODAY IN THE WORLD: The Great D. P. Moynihan
I hope that Daniel Patrick Moynihan doesn't have to die before he's accorded his due, but it's a worry. In the era of Trent Lott, we can forget that a United States Senator can be an insightful intellectual and a serious statesman. Moynihan has turned in original scholarly work on urban ethnicity, family structures, arms control, multipolar diplomacy, government secrecy, and the funding and structuring of old-age pensions. He's offended the left with his emphasis on fatherhood and he's offended the right with his emphasis on public assistance in general and child care in particular.
He is also the most powerful environmentalist in the Senate, thanks largely to his dedication to the issue of transportation. Transportation is the most crucial sector of the American economy in terms of environmental impact -- affecting climate, air, water, land use -- and Moynihan has seen to it that federal transportation policies do something besides pave roads. It was Moynihan and his staff who -- together with the founders of the Surface Transportation Policy Project -- concocted the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991. Imperfect, inconsistent, wildly complicated, ISTEA stands as a crucial and beneficial piece of legislation, for three reasons: it linked transportation spending to compliance with the Clean Air Act; it allowed states to use federal dollars for a variety of transport options; and it made explicit the value of sidewalks, bikepaths, and well-designed bus stations. What had been the highway bill had become the transportation bill.
These days the Congress is wrestling with ISTEA reauthorization, and there are tugs of war between deficit hawks and big spenders, and between proponents of mass transit and the highways-only lobby ("That Darn Triple-A") . A messy compromise will be produced, and the roadpavers will probably gain the upper hand. These are not happy times for those who question the primacy of the private automobile. But the basic ISTEA structure will probably remain, providing the framework for better days ahead. When the country gets serious about the usefulness of cities and the dangers of climate change, Senator Moynihan's foresightfulness might finally get its due.
In the meantime, Moynihan can celebrate a significant local victory. For years he has advocated the conversion of the magnificent New York General Post Office into a passenger rail station. The Post Office sits across the street from the site of the old Pennsylvania Station ("Remember Penn Station"), razed ignominiously in 1963, and the tracks go right under it. Yesterday President Clinton announced that all parties had come to an agreement on how to divide the square footage (the Postal people weren't crazy about yielding room for cafes and bookstores) and that the expensive federal-state conversion project would now go ahead. Fingers must be crossed, but it looks like there actually will be a gorgeous public facility for passengers riding high-speed trains along a 500-mile Northeast Corridor. Neither the facility nor the trains will have existed but for the leadership of Daniel Patrick Moynihan. So what do we name after him, and do we have to wait for him to die before we do it?
TODAY ON THE SITE
For the best Websites to learn more about high-speed rail, visit our High Fives on that subject, written by Howard Learner, executive director of Chicago's Environmental Law and Policy Center of the Midwest. Howard and colleagues are pushing for a high-speed Detroit-Chicago-St. Louis corridor. Go by train!
Recent "Today" columns:
3/4: "An Earthquake in Insurance"
3/3: Salmon Farming
3/2: Our Friends the Duck Killers
2/27: Trust El Nino
2/26: That Darn Triple-A
2/25: Cutting a Deal on Endangered Species
2/24: Fire? Again?
2/23: Garbage
2/20: Population Rebellion in the Sierra Club
2/19: The Trouble With Cattle
2/18: Optimistic Feds and the Future of Kyoto
2/17: The New Great Game
2/13: Windmills
2/12: Stuart Eizenstat's Smart Bomb
2/11: Alligator in the Coal Mine
2/10: Inconvenient Public Opinion
2/9: Remember Penn Station
2/6: Adam Smith and Automobile Efficiency
2/5: Clean Water, Naturally
2/4: Roll, Storms, Roll
2/3: Land Purchase Fever
2/2: Groundhog Day in the Persian Gulf
1/30: Trees and Hormones
1/29: Things To Come (2)
1/28: Things To Come
1/27: 'Bye, 'Bye Brazil
1/26: Jaywalking and Jaydriving
1/23: Good Biotech, Bad Biotech
1/22: No More Roads
1/21: Swordfish
To access more "Today" columns, click "Archives" below.