The Mechanical Horse has Bolted

It seems like I spend a lot of time on the road, if its not travelling to the office or a meeting, I'm on my way to site. Tonight's trip home was full of traffic jams and chaos, the M4 was shut at Bath and the tailbacks went miles. Today's photo was in the supposedly Active Traffic Management section at Newport, the matrix signs show 50mph, well you were lucky if you got to 10mph. Somehow I don't think the system is quite working as it should.

One of the things I'm looking at in work at the moment is how we can persuade people to think differently about how they travel to work, so we can reduce our impact on the environment. With most cars having single occupancy it is going to be difficult to change people's minds, and comments from one Welsh local authority leader last week don't help the cause of alternative transport such as bicycles.

Is it possible? Nothing is impossible, but having a car has provided people with the freedom to go wherever they want; one of the noticeable changes is where people live in relation to their work place. When I first started I lived within 10 minutes of work, now I'm nearly 100 miles. For me to use public transport would mean it took me about 8 hours travelling to and from work. Ain't going to happen. How far do you live from your work place?

Hence the title for today's entry, 'the mechanical horse has bolted', and it will be a while before we can get it back in the pen. I'm sure you've got your own thoughts on what we can do.