Word: stopgaps
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Last week the immediate crisis was not so much overcome as temporarily alleviated by a mélange of stopgap measures. After a round of emergency meetings, climaxed by a 20-hour marathon session of Common Market finance ministers in Brussels, European governments were unable to unite on the most urgent question: how to revise the exchange rates of currencies that were plainly undervalued. As an alternative to joint action, the dollar values of five important currencies were changed in three different ways...
...million envisioned over the next six months is clearly a stopgap effort, however. American officials frankly state that it is meant only to shore up the regime so that it does not go bankrupt...
...from resolving the dispute, the stopgap law merely requires that the railroads and unions keep bargaining until March 1 if necessary; at which point another strike can be called. The prime issue is money. The workers, who now average between $3.45 and $3.60 an hour, are demanding pay increases of between 40% and 45% over three years. The railroads have reluctantly offered to hike wages by an average of 37%, following the recommendation of a presidential emergency board. In return, the lines want an increase in productivity and an end to such wasteful featherbedding practices as changing train crews every...
...Stopgap Remedy. In similar fashion Italy has taken belated action against the mass traffic jams that increasingly choke the beautiful piazzas of Rome, Florence, Genoa and other cities. Ignoring the complaints of some businessmen, Rome's traffic commissioners have established seven "pedestrian islands" in historic locations like the Trevi Fountain and the Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere. In these areas all motorized traffic is banned, and drivers must leave their cars on side streets. Shops, restaurants and cafes can load and unload trucks between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m., and 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. Most citizens are delighted...
Despite all this, instant pedestrian malls are only a stopgap remedy. Says Victor Gruen, architect of the air-conditioned Midtown Plaza in Rochester, N.Y.: "Unless creation of a pedestrian mall is only one element of thorough and comprehensive downtown renewal planning, it will not solve problems but merely displace them." Without the addition of parking areas and bypassing roadways, vehicles banned from the inner city will just pile up on side streets...