One should be forgiven for feeling a bit confused, though. Things have gotten more complicated, to the point that "Moynihan Station" now means different things to different people. To recap, the project was proposed by the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan as a train station in the eastern portion of the historic Farley Post Office Building across 8th Avenue from Penn Station. As this proposal was reaching the final stages of the regulatory process and preparing for a construction start, the development team floated a long-discussed proposal for a more ambitious project that moved Madison Square Garden to the western annex of Farley, opening up the Penn Station site for a station overhaul and more than five million square feet of office space. To accommodate the new Garden, the train hall in the Farley building would lose its western edge - the so-called intermodal hall - which would be replaced in the new facility east of 8th Avenue.

The timing of this new proposal (dubbed "Plan B") also added politics to the mix. With the Pataki administration in its final year, the Governor's team decided to push ahead with the original proposal ("Plan A"), arguing that it didn't preclude Plan B, which could be pursued on a separate track by the new administration. This approach was almost unanimously supported by civic and business groups (including RPA) at a hearing in May, and seemed poised for approval from the once obscure Public Authorities Control Board in Albany.

Over the summer, Plan A's march toward construction hit several road bumps. First, some supporters of Plan B, rumored to include Attorney General Spitzer, argued that the best and fastest route to the more ambitious project was to hold Plan A until the larger Plan B made its way through the regulatory process, pursuing the project as a unified whole rather than two discreet pieces. Before this process debate could reach a conclusion, the then unblemished Comptroller Alan Hevesi expressed a laundry list of concerns about the financing and completeness of Pataki's submission for Plan A.

These concerns were soon echoed by Spitzer and then championed by Silver, who voiced a variety of disparate worries before finally refusing to support Plan A until the details of Plan B were officially presented. Naturally, each side accused the other of playing politics, and it's difficult to argue with either. Gov. Pataki undoubtedly felt pressure to gain approval for the project before leaving office, while Silver had reason to believe that delay would curry favor with the new Governor (with the bonus of stinging his long-time adversary Pataki).

But this flawed process may have led us to the best policy outcome in the end. While the details are still fuzzy, especially concerning who will pay for the $1 billion renovation of Penn Station, the potential benefits of Plan B are enormous. By creating a truly grand entryway into New York City, Plan B would fulfill Senator Moynihan's vision in a way that could not be achieved west of 8th Avenue. The new station complex, now named Moynihan East and West, would provide big public spaces, bring light and air down to the tracks, and spare up to 500,000 daily users from Penn's current cramped passageways. It would also finally rid the city of the miserable MSG donut, paving the way for master planning the whole district to finally reach its potential.

After more than a dozen years of waiting, though, we should not accept pointless delays. Spitzer has pledged to move expeditiously once in office, and his first task must be to determine if it is actually possible to move ahead with Plan A without precluding Plan B. Plan B is worth waiting for, but the public needs assurances that the station west of 8th Avenue will be built in any case, and that Plan B is a real possibility. Barring something highly unexpected, Spitzer will carry a formidable mandate into office, one that should be used to force consensus on the outstanding issues and move Moynihan Station toward reality. In the meantime, rest assured that Moynihan Station is very much alive and kicking.