AS DRIVERS sit tapping their steering wheels in frustration while they sit in jams on Birmingham's congested roads, it is clear that something must be done to get our city moving again.
Year after year more cars pour on to roads whose capacity is not infinite.
Small wonder the result is tailbacks which begin earlier and last later. Small wonder that our air is choked with fumes from cars standing still in long queues.
Widening our highways might seem like the sensible option, but think again.
Such schemes are costly, would mean the destruction of buildings or open space and, in any case, would simply encourage more vehicles on the road.
In such a situation radical solutions need to be considered and adopted.
Many hackles will be raised by today's suggestion – being debated in Brussels – of a completely-free city centre.
That is understandable when buses and trains do not provide a convenient and reliable alternative for many commuters.
Clearly more needs to be done to make public transport an option that will tempt motorists out of their cars when they want to travel into the city.
But, equally, drivers should realise that their journeys will become increasingly slow and wearisome unless we make some difficult choices.
One such choice may well be a city centre traffic ban.