Here is a Windows Sidebar gadget from the Windows 7 Personalization Gallery that can give you a head start on your drive into work each morning.
This gadget provides a snapshot on your desktop of the current traffic status on your city provided by Bing and gives you direct access to Bings main traffic website to look into traffic details more in depth before you walk out the door.
The only limitation on this sidebar gadget is the number of cities covered which is a limitation of Bing Traffic itself. Currently only 93 cities are listed but it is quite popular as it has been downloaded nearly 840K times.
Screenshots
This is the first thing you see after installing the sidebar gadget. Pick your city and the gadget will shift to the second image.
This is the normal size gadget. Click on it and your default browser will open up the Bing Traffic website for the city you picked.
Here is the expanded size gadget.
If you hover your mouse over the normal size or expanded gadget you will get some icons on the left to interact with the map.
The only setting option on this sidebar gadget is to pick the city you want shown in it.