People are driven by the cattle prod. If the government wants to reduce something, it needs to be more painful to acquire or use, i.e. sin taxes. It's worked on cigarettes, alcohol, soda, etc. to varying degrees. The government would likely have a very big uphill battle to out-market the automobile industry given a large segment of the population distrusts or dislikes the government.

I ultimately agree with the approach they're taking. It isn't going to be accomplished by building additional lanes and subsequently asking people to pretty-please take transit.

It does need to be weighed against the practicality of transportation to/from where your transit riders need to go. Given the vast majority of Western states are sparsely populated, transit dollars can only go so far.