HN is very US centric. In the US state politics are almost always dominated by one or a couple of cities. And the generally dominate in a ways that results in rural and suburban folk are basically told to screw off if they don't like it. The reason people come out of the woodwork to scream "but what about rural areas" is that the fear is that cities will get policies enacted at the state level that make it more expensive to own/operate a vehicle statewide rather than improve alternatives (costs money, whereas taxing cars makes money) or just raise costs in the city.

Basically people are worried about a lead balloon like NY-SAFE but for cars.

I'd be perfectly fine if the major city in my state made it more expensive to use a car in the city so long as there was an proportional increase in the quantity of park and ride lots at the ends of the rail network and reliability of that rail service. What would happen in reality is that they'd just raise the cost, the parking garages would all be full at 6am instead of 7am and the rail network would be even worse because it would be handling more volume and the money made would be used on pork and graft. Nobody's quality of life would be improved save politicians who suddenly have more money to spend on salaried government jobs they can appoint the friends/relatives of people they want on their side to and the people appointed to those jobs.