When Sound Transit misses its ridership goals, as it did last year, well according to the Seattle Times, that's a story that raises alarms about the motives and/or competency of rail "boosters":

The low ridership raises the question of when the taxpayers' multibillion-dollar investment in Sounder and Link rail might be rewarded by heavy ridership — something political boosters have promised since the mid-1990s.

So how come when automobile traffic falls short of projections—as documented the other day by Sightline—there's nothing in the Seattle Times questioning the promises of those politicians boosting major highway projects?

For example, even as we prepare to spend billions on a new Columbia River Crossing, traffic on the existing I-5 bridge between Portland and Vancouver has declined every year since 2005, falling by 7,000 vehicles a day rather than the forecasted 7,000 per day increase. In Seattle, future home of the Big Bore Tunnel, in-city trips have dropped from 975,000 a day in 2003 to 900,000 a day in 2009. And statewide, annual highway vehicle miles traveled plateaued a decade ago, and has noticeably declined since 2007.

Yet we don't see any Seattle Times articles dedicated to questioning the return on investment of the many billions of dollars spent annually on roads and freeways, because, I guess, they've used up all their ink painting light rail in a bad light for missing its ridership goals... even as ridership bucked the broader transportation trend by increasing 38 percent from the year ago quarter.

Nope. No double standard there.