In just a few months’ time, the first trains will rumble through Crossrail – London’s sparkling new east-west link. It will be a crowning moment for a fantastic £15bn civil engineering project and it’s a fair bet that our head of state will inaugurate the new Elizabeth Line.

Every politician loves a new train set and an “opening”, and there will be many speeches waxing lyrical about enhanced British infrastructure. Crossrail is great and I applaud the vision and investment – but let’s take a moment to put it into the context of  a rather lopsided approach towards transport.

According to the Government’s official figures, the average individual gets on a train 21 times per year – so once or twice...