Every Friday morning, I drive from Fairwater to the Mail sorting office by the tax office to pick up any post sent to the Trust during the week. As the sorting office opens at 7, I always try to make sure I'm there within about ten minutes of it opening, consequently, the traffic is light and I can do it in about a quarter of an hour. However, when I'm driving home at around 7.15 to 7.30 the traffic going into Cardiff from the roundabout by the BBC building is already stretching back hundreds of yards - I'm sure that my drive time to the sorting office would be made at least twice as long if I left, say, twenty minutes later.

With St Fagan's Road, the other main road from Fairwater into central Cardiff, also being choc a bloc during the rush hour, it's bad enough already for commuters in this area without the Plasdwr development to the north west of the city which is planned to add another 7,000 homes to the area (and God knows how many more rush hour cars).

If you've got the time, it's well worth watching this programme

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...-growing-pains

in which Jason Mohammad outlines his concerns about what the next couple of decades hold for Cardiff. I was aware that the council's plans for dealing with the additional traffic in the area where I now live (it's not just North West Cardiff which faces these problems either) that is going to arise in the next decade or so did not seem to be very convincing, but, after watching what our council leader had to say, I'm thinking I wasn't appreciating the full extent of the problem.

All things being equal, I'll be moving to Beddau soon. I thought this would mean about a half hour's drive from my current home to my new one, but, at off peak times, I can get there and back in about twenty five minutes by driving along Llantrisant Road and cutting through Creigiau - I think I better enjoy it while I can though, because that's another journey time that's going to be at least doubled soon.

To me, the most effective line in that programme was the one about the plan seeming to be that the council's target of 50 per cent of journey's being taken by public transport will only be achieved by making life so miserable and intolerable for car drivers that they'll have no option but to get on the bus or train!