Yes, that's precisely it lockdownbear! I work (tangentially) with planners/ developers and the "encouraging active and sustainable travel" is really just a sop to whatever policy is relevant at the time. They may say there are x bus routes within a 10 minute walk, or design a nice path from the nearest housing estate or whatever. But in reality, all the developers drive, they know all the people using or working at whatever it is will drive - so they don't care that the buses are only once every couple of hours and stop at 5pm, or people working there come from somewhere other than the centre of the nearest town, or that the lovely path will get overgrown, be poorly lit (probably coupled with an argument to do with ensuring bats or toads don't get freaked out or something) and be a magnet for local youths to drink and smoke in the evenings...
Ensuring sufficient electric car charging points is the New Thing. Which is all well and good, but has its own problems, and still requires people to drive.
I don't know what the answer is - even in cities - so in more remote, rural areas the whole reducing car use thing seems utterly unfeasible. And that sounds very pessimistic, I know.