I think this vision is shared by some of the town councils in big european towns.

For example in Paris, the current mayor (who has been in office since 2001) has made it his mission to make the city as unfriendly as possible for cars to discourage people to come to Paris in their cars.

This includes massively removing parking spots, making parking expensive all over the city, removing lanes wherever there are roadworks (to add sidewalks, bike or bus lanes, trees...) and banning cars from some of the most important streets in the city (most notably the embankments).

So far it has stopped the growth in car usage in Paris. I don't think people are ready for an outright ban on cars yet, but this surely seems like an effective strategy to prepare them for it. Maybe when the Supermetro is done and suburbans can more effectively use public transportation the city will move in this direction.

However : do you consider taxis as public transport ? What about Autolibs (shared electric cars you can pick up all around the city) ?

Edit with some stats : Parisians overwhelmingly use public transport (63%) and not their cars (13%) to go to work. More people walk than take their cars (14%). So that would be an indication of success, however a brief walk outside at 6PM will help you see that suburbans still massively come to Paris in their cars :)