Red Star rails against anti-rails in a "news" story

The Red Star published a "news" article today decrying, well, we're not sure what exactly. The article is titled "Light-rail critics at national parley are rough riders". Huh? Bad batch of crack, Strib headline writer? The author is David Peterson, who is frequently published, and generally literate as far as we can tell. This time, however, he's gone around the bend. Maybe it's just Rambix, but this article seems to be amongst the most poorly written since, well, since ever. And just a little biased? Says David right out of the box:

"Consider the Hiawatha Line's first birthday party officially crashed.

Unfazed by its local reputation as a smash success [ed. - really?], a group that includes many of the nation's leading light-rail skeptics landed in town Friday and started gleefully pouncing [ed. - now that's objective!] on anything that smelled like a defect. "

And this by the "Preserving the American Dream" conference organizer [and ostensibly one of the "antis"] Randal O'Toole:

"But O'Toole conceded in an interview that reduced bus ridership after last year's Metro Transit strike muddies one of his main concerns [that's "one"] about the Hiawatha light-rail line: that it didn't lead to an overall increase in transit use. He called it a "tentative F.""

We doubt that Mr. O'Toole gave the transit line "tenatative F" based soley on factors related to overall transit use. What are the odds some type of cost-per-rider analysis figured into the review? Light rail may be great for the select few that use it, but at what cost? A very high cost, that's what cost. We suspect the reporter "accidentally" omitted some other factors.

In any event, we urge you to read the article, and see if it makes any more sense to you than it did us. whatever the case, we know the ultimate goal of the article is to bash the rail "antis" [read: the common sense crew]. And the Red Star is not biased ;)