You already depend on the government for building and maintaining the roads and the traffic lights and all accoutrements, the government can already close roads and restrict you. Public transport doesn't need to be government provided, it can be privatised (although this works badly in the UK). You also depend on the government in various ways for food and water and electricity - from land use and transport to crime prevention to upholding trade and food safety requirements and the value of currency; everyone in a city does, at least. Picking the car as the important thing for "freedom" is a ... weird one. And doesn't address the idea of "freedom from having to have a car".
> "Yet I can think of a few recent examples where control over public transportation was used to suppress protests."
"The PMLN-led federal and Punjab governments have closed several roads leading to Islamabad from various Punjab cities and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province in an effort to stop PTI activists from marching on Islamabad."[3] - there's control over the roads used to suppress something or other (I don't know what PTI activists are, but I'm assuming this isn't in the middle of a war because that probably wouldn't be using shipping containers and talking of 'activists').
What about the COVID lockdowns preventing people from going outside at all? Having a car didn't give you freedom then, and public transport wasn't involved. What about The UK[2] making it legal for the police to shut down protests because the protestors might walk slowly down roads - no control over public transport needed to stop the protest (and on the flip side, car drivers depending on the government to keep cars moving).
In Paris: "Every first Sunday of the month is the new car-free day in Paris. It's an initiative appreciated by many Parisians, who have fallen under the spell of a capital free of motorized vehicles and noise pollution. The capital's first four arrondissements are closed to car traffic on one Sunday a month."[1] - more showing that governments can shut roads and therefore car drivers are dependent on the government for freedom of movement, as well as public transport users are.
[1] https://www.sortiraparis.com/en/news/in-paris/articles/17562... -
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/15/police-to-get-...
[3] https://dailytimes.com.pk/940632/govt-closes-all-roads-leadi...