Removing existing or…

Removing existing or blocking well-thought out planned bike lanes will do nothing to reduce congestion, it will cost lives, waste taxpayers' money, dissuade people from considering alternatives to driving, hurt local businesses, and undermine local democracy. Nothing about this makes sense, and the government knows it. The city of Toronto has studied the impact of bike lanes pretty much each time it added them and consistently found that impact on car traffic was negligible. They also consistently found that it is good for business and for the safety of all road users. In fact, I drive regularly in the city and I love the bike lanes. They reduce possible points of conflict significantly and make driving more pleasant as a result. Either the government knows all this and is doing it regardless, which makes it nothing but an attempt to score cheap political points at the expense of people's lives, or it did not do its basic due diligence, which suggests incompetence.
The idea of moving bike lanes to side roads also is absurd. Bike riders too have to be in the same places as drivers, the same businesses, schools, jobs, recreation centres, etc. Those are overwhelmingly on main roads. Moving bike lanes to side roads only makes sense if you assume that cyclists only bike for recreation. Moreover, the City of Toronto's staff report to the November 2024 Council made it clear that for most major bike routes, there's no viable alternatives on side roads.
Half of downtown Toronto residents don't own a car, and about thirty percent of all of the city. And, far from the 1% that the government cites, the City's own surveys show that more than 40% of Torontonians cycle regularly, and that's up to 70% when including recreational use. The message that this measure sends to such a large proportion of the city is that they don't count and their safety doesn't count. After all, bike lanes have proven to be beneficial to pedestrian safety as well, as they significantly reduced accidents involving all road users. The province is willing to sacrifice the safety of Torontonians for marginal improvements in travel times at best, or likely even no real improvements.
In a time of climate emergency, we should be encouraging people to bike, walk, use transit, this does the opposite and doesn't even have a trade off. The safety of children biking to school or their friends -- and of others, of course -- shouldn't be made into a battle in a culture war.