Darren Glaude, Seminole County Watch columnist

I love trains just as much as I hate sitting in traffic.

One of the most enjoyable things in traveling to big cities is abandoning the car and taking the train as much as possible.

For that matter, I love mass transit.  I'd much rather hop on a bus whenever possible than drive my own car.  Same with taking a train.

That is part of what makes visiting Washington, D. C. such a pleasant experience.  Hopping on the Metrorail and traveling virtually anywhere I'd like to go in any direction.

Maybe it is part of a romanticism that equates riding the rails and buses with some sort of urban grittiness and real-life experience.

Having grown up in central Florida, devoid of the opportunity to inculcate the mass transit experience into my daily routine, I am drawn to it when visiting "the city," enjoying some sort of mental pretension it provides that brings enjoyment from being part of such an experience.

One thing I've noticed, though, on the faces of many of the people riding mass transit in the big cities. 

It does not matter which city it is specifically.  It seems the same in all of them.  That is, the daily commuters whose reliance upon mass transit is involuntary do not seem as enamored of the experience as I do as a visitor.

The joy and wonderment I feel as a visitor does not transcend to their relying on mass transit for their daily commute.  It is much like the manner in which we central Floridians take our local attractions for granted while tourists are illuminated and aglow during their time here, for which they have paid a pretty penny.

From the looks on the faces of those who inhabit the big cities and their surrounding areas, it seems, if possible, they would much rather rely upon their own transportation than mass transit. 

Conditions and circumstances, rather than choice, seem to dictate their being on the train or bus as a means of traversing their daily trek.

This all becomes relevant because of the mass hysteria that some have been trying to encourage during the past week over mass transit.

Commuter rail is being pushed as part of the cure for central Florida's traffic woes.  If we build a train from Volusia County to south Orange County, the passengers will come.  Or so we are told.  They will ride the rails, the train enthusiasts tell us, and alleviate a bit of the pressure producing such congestion on I-4.

As one who loves to ride the rails, I wish I could say I believe it to be true.  But, to be honest, it seems something around which everyone is rallying simply because there is nothing else.

Let's face it:  our traffic woes produce a daily nightmare that continues to worsen.  In moments of frankness and honesty, we admit to ourselves that it will never get better.  Our roads are congested and always will be.  No matter how many we build or how wide we make them, traffic will expand to fill them.

We don't know what to do, so we produce solutions and cling to them as a means of some sort of hope that gets us through the day.  Without hope, we cannot survive.  So we say we will build a train, and that will make things better. 

Deep down, though, we know it to be a lie.  But we cannot bring ourselves to admit it, because we then have to face the truth.  Facing the truth means admitting the fallacy of the big lie that undergirds all we are doing.

Growth and development pay their own way.  That is what we tell ourselves and each other to justify the continuance of growth and development.  Yet all around us is the evidence that shows the falseness of such claims. 

If growth and development really paid their own way, we would not be awash with so many problems that are eroding the quality of our daily lives.  If there were truth to the lies we pretend to believe, local governments would not be buckling under the pressures of inadequate infrastructures and rising costs of appropriate responses.

But to not grow and develop is to stand still and abandon progress.  Progress means moving forward and continuing to do what we have always done, even though it is coming back to bite us in so many ways on the back end.

Not only do we have to keep up with the Joneses, we also have to outpace them.  Now, to do so, we must lay some track so we can hop on a train and keep moving.  Otherwise, we will be sitting stagnant in traffic. 

Obviously, if we are not moving forward, we are not progressing.  It's true, isn't it?  After all, just look how far we have come.  We tell ourselves it is progress, but that is questionable to those who have a different view.

Email Darren at darrenglaude@seminolecountywatch.com