Yes, the pandemic has accelerated this, but everyone involved needs to be open for the possibility from the beginning. Here in Germany when someone proposes something like this there is a storm of protest from small businesses: "what we are already on the brink of bankruptcy with everyone ordering stuff online or going to supermarkets with huge parking lots and now you want to cut us off from our customers do you want to kill us off completely?!?!" (because everyone knows real customers come in cars, pedestrians and cyclists obviously don't have the money to afford a car, so they can't afford anything else either).
I've written about this on a similar post previously. The town I grew up in in Germany (Lüneburg for those familiar with Germany), turned some of the central city into a pedastrian mall about 30-40 years ago. I still remember the local newspaper being full of angry letters from local businesses complaining that this would be the death of the city centre, everyone would go shopping at the big malls on the outside of town which will soon pop up etc.. In reality the exact opposite happened the city centre is packed with people, the city is immensely popular with tourists who come from all over and many of the big "shopping centres " outside of town disappeared.
At the moment there are discussions on expending the pedestrian zones further and the same arguments are being made by businesses, it is as if nobody learned anything.
I've heard similar stories about Paris and other places. Business often resist changing their street to a pedestrian area, and every time it turns out that it will actually boost their business.
