Consumer choices are made in some context. All things equals, I would rather have a car. But if society taxes me out of having a car (which it did), then I would have to sell/scrap my car and find arrangements to live without it. Luckily for me, that was possible.

I would say that pointing out to the laws that transfer car ownership costs to other people is a very important piece of information, even if the complete picture looks more like "Interest groups lobby for regulation that promote car ownership". It's good business for car makers, traffic insurance, health insurance, and the medical industry. It's bad for the pockets of low income people, and generally for everybody's wellbeing. The more concrete data people have about this, the better their chances to improve things...even if I would still consider those chances very slim.

In most of America it is illegal to build a pedestrian oriented town in the fashion of the old colonial New England towns or the small towns that dot railway lines along the east coast. In fact, in most of America it is illegal to build a building without parking at all, or a building with retail on the ground floor and apartments or offices on top. It is thus illegal to even consider alternate built environments for the majority of Americans and the choice is not available in the market to begin with.

The one signal we do have is price, and price per square foot in walkable neighborhoods is higher than in unwalkable ones. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2014/06/17/a-citys-walkability-driv...

If zoning codes did not required the building to have large amounts of parking, there would be more people who would choose to drive cars - as parking would be expensive. There would also be more apartments on one place so public transport would be more likely to appear.

Had there be more crossing and people allowed to cross out of crossing where crossing is not available, more people would walk.

People choose to have or not have a car based on many factors.

I imagine fewer people would own cars if the money spent on roads had been invested in train tracks and subway tunnels.