I haven't seen "road diets" used as a way to force people to abandon cars. In fact, most such projects I've seen (several) have improved traffic flow once people got used to them, because interfering flows (left turns, right turns, bikes, parking) got their own pieces of pavement. Speeds may not have gone up (nor should they, in dense urban or shopping areas), but the flow is smoother. See also the "Complete Streets" concept that was promoted several years ago.

The more likely move for making driving less attractive is a combination of reducing the amount of parking and making it more expensive, usually with improvements of some kind to transit and bicycle access to compensate.

Remember, US DOT operates at the whim of the Administration and Congress. Congress controls the money, which means they have the final say on what happens with most of the Framework. So don't worry too much about the conspiracy theories; if they need money to happen, they won't. The federal plan is primarily policies, not actual programs, because the states are where the dollars hit the ground in projects. The only place you'll find federal money used directly for delivering non-military transportation is on federal land like national parks. States don't necessarily have to follow all of the policies to get money.

If you want to see what an actual state transportation plan looks like (and California's is odd because it isn't project-specific; most do specify projects in some way) check out the California Transportation Plan item below.