That would have gotten a no, but ”we would like to do an experiment decreasing road congestion” could have gotten them a yes _and_ a subsidy for running the experiment.

And yes, that “yes” would have had strings attached, even if it weren’t subsidized, but that’s normal for anthingmyhea affects shared space. If a company goes to the city and says “we would like to park our cars on the street instead of on our expensive parking lot” or “we would like to semi-permanently occupy the space in front of or shops”, would you expect the city to say “yes”, too?