I see by the Deseret News (May 16) that the "Dallas light rail hums into service." From the story's own mixed public reaction to the Southwest's first light rail system, your headline writer must have dropped the prefix "ho" from the verb "hums."
And no wonder. Dallas power brokers have tried for a decade to fund their Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) system. They dangled some familiar carrots: positive spins on negative election results, inadequate ridership estimates, inflated success from other cities, doctored tax data and, of course, the juiciest carrot of them all - high-percentage seed money from Uncle Sam.The story omits how many miles the DART system stretches but includes two significant figures. The project cost $870 million, with the federal government paying $160 million. My family's math genius (who lives in Texas) confirms that avuncular share as a hair over 18 percent.
That's a far cry from the whopping support we've all been told to expect from Washington. Shouldn't future reporters spell our train "The Lie Trail Line?"
Paul Cracroft
Salt Lake City