The problem is that you have…

The problem is that you have a single passenger in cars, when carpooling and public transportation are viable options. Reducing the amount of cars means reducing gridlock.

Studies have shown that dedicated bike lanes have actually improved traffic for businesses (good luck trying to find a parking spot for your car in downtown Toronto).

Also, look at New York City, specifically Manhattan. Even though they still have traffic issues, look at the shear amount of dedicated bike lanes and their vast network for bike share. Look at the reach and extent of their subway system. They put the parking spots between the bike lane and the car lanes. This means that they don't even have to put in dedicated barriers/protections for the bike lanes. The parked cars act as the barrier. This keeps infrastructure costs down and makes drivers aware (because who cares about hitting a cyclist, but if you ding your mirror on another car, drivers panic about insurance costs).

If I was going to get hit by something, I'd rather it being a bicycle than a mouth-frothing dad in a minivan speeding past a construction site because they had to drive their kids to school (their kids are too good for public transit, I guess).

Maybe if more politicians and policy makers lived in the cities instead of multi-million, multi-acre mansions in the suburbs, they would have a different perspective on this matter. Have these folks bike one day in the city, have them navigate to Queen's Park or their office in downtown Toronto. And since you're proposing to remove bike lanes, make sure these politicians ride in the car lanes, with the other cars. Ask them how safe they feel during rush hour.