Whenever I split, I do it between stopped cars, if traffic is moving slowly enough I would probably take the lane, if it's moving quickly, I would go up to the intersection and wait for the red light, then walk my bike in front of stopped cars to position myself in the crosswalk, forwards of the lane line.

I see your point about inviting cars to pass that closely, but I'm not sure they would get that impression if a bike filters past when they're stopped at a light as much as, say, if you split by at 15mph when they're stuck in stop&go traffic averaging 5mph (which I would never do, but motorcycles do it around here all the time)