We literally turned streets from areas for commerce and recreation in to killing strips.

Driving an SUV or anything else is freedom. Riding buses or walking in the freezing cold or boiling hot isn’t “freedom” it’s misery.

Walking in the freezing cold for a couple blocks is not a problem if you dress for it. Waiting for transit in the freezing cold is misery.

Riding buses that are quickly get you where you want to go is not a problem. Riding buses that take a convoluted route and thus make slow progress to where you want to go is misery.

You are correct for the bad state of transit most people have, but good transit is possible and then the things you are worried about are not misery.

Only vehicle I experienced freedom with was bicycle. Car is further from freedom. Driving in line of cars or finding parking place is not freedom. You are not completely free with bicycle either but everything is more instant with bike. Motorbike is close but since it is so heavy it can be bit of burden.

Quite a few places you would never even be able to even reach in a reasonable amount of time via bus/bike/walk. Would be like the part of the world accessible to you just radically shrank overnight.

Counterpoint: decent public transport could eliminate this - and make even more places actually reachable, as you don't have to take care of making breaks to not fall asleep on the wheel, refueling stops, or having to search (and pay for) parking spots.

But it depends on volume to make sense. If I want to be deep in a national forest somewhere with the intention of getting away from people and bring my horses, public transport just won't do it. With my own vehicle, that's not a problem. I love public transportation in places where it works and have used it a lot in the past, but I could never limit myself to it or totally depend on it - too many places it could never go. Freedom of having your own vehicle really is unparalleled.