There are many city policies that can be supportive of limiting the space for automobile use, such as eliminating parking requirements in cities. If developers are forced to build extra parking, it encourages people to have automobiles in the first place, which is not in any way supportive of the public transit system, walking biking, etc.
Does your city require off-street residential parking, even in urban dense areas? ASK THEM WHY!

Possible game changer: a Property tax (or rent) break/rebate funded through an increase in the gasoline tax.

A REVENUE-NEUTRAL proposal could be politically feasible, since the money is GIVEN BACK TO PEOPLE. You drive about the same, you pay the same. You drive even a little bit less, you SAVE money. Do people have the option of paying LESS for their residence in property tax/rent? Nope! This would be a way to fund it and discourage automobile use.

You make more efficient driving habits, more fuel efficient car, live closer to your destinations, maintain the car, walk/bike/public transit more, than people can OPT-OUT of paying so much at the pump and save $$$.
We need to make bold demands from our legislators.

Yeah! A four-door sedan you can take out to the track and (silently) blow the doors off all the brand new Camaros and Mustangs!

The worse thing about electric cars though is that in focusing on them, the government distracts people from the real issues with that promise of a pain-free, change-free world. And for the changes we have to make, time is running out.

The King will never favor parceling privilege to bicycles over his/her beloved dragons. Electric ones. Gas ones. Cherry juice-powered ones. Whatever. Did I say never? I meant NEVER. Never. Not ever. No one ever said the King was smart.

But the King is smart enough not to care about human life and health, or of reducing collisions and emissions as much as s/he cares about power. All of the King’s programs will never improve those measures as much as getting the King out of the chariot perpetuation business.

Wanna get fireless dragons off the road? End the King’s presumed authority to feed goodies to dragons. Thereafter, when people account for the true cost of obtaining, feeding, and keeping healthy their dragon against the cost of cycling, we will succeed beyond your wildest dreams, Ted. Short of that, protecting the King’s privilege in hopes that s/he will see the blinding light and begin dishing out privilege rationally is another kind of dream – a pipe dream.

Ted, your argument is reasoned and right, but too carefully parsed. Henry Bliss may have been right too, but that didn’t make him any less dead. If slaying dragons is a good thing, then supporting the artificial system that created, feeds and perpetuates the beast and its lair in the hopes that a few leftover crumbs may fall our way makes no sense. Being an ardent voice for bicycling and an equally ardent defender of managing the system that nurtures dragons is a draw favoring the dragon at the expense of the bicycle.