So I came here. To observe, to learn and see what the Dutch are doing right just from a personal perspective. And it's a lot.
If you follow the pioneering work of Clarence Eckerson (https://www.streetfilms.org) you already know that one of the things many European cities have done to restore balance, is remove parking. This removes any incentive to drive. In the central city of Amsterdam there is very little car parking. One native told me there is a shopping mall that offers 200 parking places inside the building. Beyond that, cars simply have very little place to go. But there is bike parking. And how:
To the naked eye, it eventually starts to seem like so much clutter. I mean, who would need so many bikes? But as a New Yorker, your eye is different and you quickly translate: in our city, that number would represent cars - lots of cars. Because most cars driving around New York only hold one person. No WONDER we can't move!
In spite of the clutter, a cyclist looking at all this bike parking is like Oliver Twist peeping into a shop window filled with delicacies: we have virtually no bike parking in New York. The occasional bike rack, usually taken up by delivery bikes. Everyone else is left to their own devices. There is one company trying to make a go of secure parking: https://www.ooneepod.com/ We are rooting for them, but so far they have yet to find permanent space in Manhattan.
So changing who gets parking has had a tremendous effect on how Amsterdam functions. But they've done lots else. Like build bike lanes truly protected from cars.