In some ways, yes, though not in many cities like SF, NYC, Chicago, Seattle, etc.
But it's also a chicken and egg problem: often transit is not viable or is too slow precisely because everything is devoted to cars. The SF Van Ness BRT is an excellent example - I used to routinely get off the 49 bus and walk faster than it stuck in car traffic, but after the BRT the bus is a much better and faster experience than driving could ever be.
One of the most common reasons for watering down or canceling pedestrian, transit, and biking infra projects is a refusal to negatively impact driving in any way, even if the net societal benefit (especially to lower income households who take transit at much higher rates) is far greater.
Good governance requires sometimes unpopular choices (see Paris's recent bicycle transformation, or SF's recent recall election over the creation of a new public park in place of a redundant street)
> The SF Van Ness BRT is an excellent example - I used to routinely get off the 49 bus and walk faster than it stuck in car traffic
It's funny that you use that particular example considering the SF Supervisors of 1958 are the ones who created that problem by refusing to build the elevated freeway that transit planning engineers correctly envisioned we would need. Tearing down the stub end of it also created the most dangerous intersection in the city at Market & Octavia. As a pedestrian it would be so nice to have cars elevated up off the ground instead of having to wait to cross on foot. A lot of intersections of Octavia and its cross streets don't even allow pedestrian crossing at all lmfao
But it's also a chicken and egg problem: often transit is not viable or is too slow precisely because everything is devoted to cars. The SF Van Ness BRT is an excellent example - I used to routinely get off the 49 bus and walk faster than it stuck in car traffic, but after the BRT the bus is a much better and faster experience than driving could ever be.
One of the most common reasons for watering down or canceling pedestrian, transit, and biking infra projects is a refusal to negatively impact driving in any way, even if the net societal benefit (especially to lower income households who take transit at much higher rates) is far greater.
Good governance requires sometimes unpopular choices (see Paris's recent bicycle transformation, or SF's recent recall election over the creation of a new public park in place of a redundant street)