People will still want cars after lockdown, but they will want cleaner air too

The poll of 3,000 UK adults also found that 64% of people believe that the government should invest more money in local transport.

And 62% of are in favour of boosting electric vehicle charging points, while 54% support extra funding for cycle lanes.

The survey was commissioned by the environmental charity Hubbub, which might make some people wonder if it has reached the sort of conclusions environmentalists would want it to reach. But we have to trust that they are accurate findings and in any event it is no surprise that lockdown has caused people to reassess aspects of their lives.

Lockdown has shifted the way companies and individuals think about home-working and video conferences as a replacement for face-to-face meetings.

Millions of people around the world will be wondering about the expense and wasted time of rush hour. If, for example, each worker on average now began for the first time to work from home only on one day out of a five day week, there would be a fifth less people (20%) commuting each day.

The world is not going to change completely, however. Many jobs cannot be done from home. And we can already see big increases in traffic on Northern Ireland’s roads.

People will not just give up on the car. Cycling to work is not going to be an option for a stressed mother who has to drive her children to school on a wet November morning, and then travel 9 miles to work in the other direction.

But while politicians should not rush to penalise cars, or abandon projects like the York Street interchange, lockdown has shown how technology can help flexible work-travel.

Air pollution was already improving pre lockdown – the car addicted Los Angeles has seen smog fall over the last 50 years, as ever more fuel efficient planes and cars are developed. There will be all the more demand for progress after it.