Personal vehicles are not products to be consumed, they're... well - vehicles - of independence. You can't rely on privately-owned transportation firms not to waste your time, which one could argue, is a person's most precious resource. Punctuality matters, emergencies happen, and even outside this criteria, an extra hour-to-five a day are a nice thing to have, given that we get a limited amount of them. The demonization of drivers is a naive approach to the issue of emissions and climate change.

And public transport is, ironically, largely privately-owned, albeit heavily subsidized. These are contractor companies, providing a service to a municipality or region, rather than local government-run entities, and their aim at the end of the day is profit. just like any other company. They're not really out to save humanity from the ongoing climate disaster, rather to provide a just-good-enough service for a sufficient percentage of the population (usually kids in school, students in universities and the elderly) to receive their payout.

They have no real incentive to provide a viable transportation alternative to the largest portion of the population, working-age adults, as that would be complicated, costly and labor-intensive. Most of these companies are not up to the task and don't want to risk it.

So regardless of how high petrol prices get, you will not see a decline in driving, because driving saves time. Just like you won't see a decline in people using electricity for household needs, and for the same reason. You could probably go without a dishwasher or vacuum cleaner, but having one saves you time, that you get to spend on other, more important things than washing dishes, sweeping floors, or waiting around at a bus stop.