Perhaps better rapid transit could be quicker and safer than driving in amy form. Perhaps designers should design cities around rapid transit rather than building rapid transit after the cities have been built.
This is already the case, at least in the US. Most of our car-centric cities didn't start out that way; they were systematically converted into car-centric environments by dismantling public transit systems and replacing them with highways and surface-level parking.
Examples: Sioux City[1]; Albany[2]; Boise[3].
[1]: https://www.siouxcitymuseum.org/history-website/transportati...
[2]: https://www.timesunion.com/living/article/The-evolution-of-t...
[3]: https://www.boisestate.edu/sps-urban/urban-resources/trolley...
Cars are on the precipice of both becoming immensely greener (electric) and immensely more practical (self-driving) than the status-quo. The transit-equilibrium is going to shortly and rapidly shift towards cars, not away from them.
Creating an electric car battery emits as much CO2 as creating a whole new gas vehicle from scratch. Depending on the size of the battery and on the green-ness of the grid it's attached to, it takes anywhere from 20,000 to 90,000 miles of driving an EV to reach break-even against a gasoline car. Then it has to be replaced after 100-200,000 miles. Then there's the environmental impact of lithium, copper, etc, extraction.
Of course you have to consider that private ownership requirements and mandating parking minimums, free parking, etc, are a massive regressive burden on the poor. Between fuel/power, maintenance, insurance, tickets, tolls, parking, interest, payments, etc, you're liable to spend a half million dollars over your life on your car.
Why? Why not retire sooner, or leave more to your kids?
Freedom is your ability to go anywhere you want any time you want, it shouldn't be defined by your ownership of a very expensive metal box.
The environmental benefits are quite likely to be wiped out by the growth of the car market in for instance India and China.
Towns big and small had extensive public transit networks comprised of street cars and trains - and they were all ripped out and downtown cores turned largely into parking lots divided by interstates.
Continuing down car-centricity isn't a foregone conclusion, and it's not too late to walk back our poor decision making.
My point is that freedom is achievable better, safer, cheaper and cleaner by investing in non-car transit.