[UtopiaPunk]

I get that humans would rather have the carrot than the stick. However, there are arguably a lot of positive benefits that result from making cars a more inconvenient choice. For example, one design choice that makes cars convenient is that towns and cities in the U.S.A often prioritize parking lots. Parking lots take up a lot of valuable space. If we used that space for something else (housing, a restaurant, a park, a museum, office space, anything really), then it becomes much less convenient for cars to be in the area, but more attractive for people who do not depend on a car. If that happens at scale in area, you also get other nice benefits like less air pollution, less noise pollution, fewer traffic accidents, etc.

[bluGill]

The problem is you need to be able to get to that area before you can eliminate cars. If you are not careful you can kill an area because the people who used to drive there cannot anymore and so they just go elsewhere. If you already have a lot of people arriving by something other than cars, then you can replace the parking lot with something else and make better use of the space, but most areas don't have that advantage.

Building such places is not easy where they don't already exist. It isn't impossible, but you need to start there.