My name is John and I live…

My name is John and I live in Hamilton. I drive and cycle approximately equal amounts for transportation purposes within the city.
Hamilton is full of streets where vehicle demand has plummeted since their peak usage decades ago amidst the decline in Ontario's domestic industrial sector, which has hit Hamilton disproportionately. There are many streets with more room than locals here know what to do with, some of which have recently added bike lanes and still never see any vehicle congestion (Victoria Ave, for example).
Other streets have removed a vehicle lane to add a bike lane that connects two situations like the one I described above. Bay Street South of Main has no congestion caused by the two-way bike path that removed a lane of traffic. Bay Street North of Cannon has no congestion issues related the bike lanes there. For the very short distance of Bay Street in between Main and Cannon, a lane of traffic was removed for the bike lanes on that stretch to ensure continuity of the Bay Street bike infrastructure across the city. That stretch of Bay has always been congested, bike lanes or not. The bike lanes on Bay Street connect the far south of the lower city to the waterfront, and connect the employment core of the city to residential areas north and south of it.
The bike lane in the middle of Bay Street in Hamilton between Main and Cannon would certainly fit this proposal's criteria for removal. Removing it, however, would create a disconnection on a cross-city route, leaving City Hall employees no safe way to reach the non-congestion-causing bike lanes north of Cannon to bike home to the North End, and leaving cyclists who live in Durand neighbourhood no safe way to complete their bike ride from the Bay bike lanes south of Main to events at the Hamilton Arena, or further north to West Harbour Go Station, or to Bayfront Park.
I share this not to simply advocate for preservation of one bike lane in Hamilton, but as an analogy for the function of bike lanes in cities across the province. Removing bike lanes in stretches that cause increased traffic congestion render useless bike lanes in the many, many areas of cities like Hamilton that do not cause congestion for everyday taxpayers who want to bike from their homes in quiet neighbourhoods to work or recreation that might be slightly within an area of vehicle congestion.
The value of fully connecting cycling networks for the sake of ensuring safety for people who value mobility and transportation by a variety of methods makes the current proposal so clearly misguided that it leaves the public with reason to believe the theories floating around various internet and social media circles presently, that this whole Province-wide proposal is a direction from the Premier himself in response to a change in his neighbourhood that he's sad about. I am not suggesting anything about how this proposal came to be, except that it is so obviously misguided that it invites conspiracy theories quite naturally. I look forward to seeing it revoked.