The War on the Car may be over, but the struggle to keep on driving has only started.

Despite Mayor Rob Ford’s efforts, Herculean though they may be, the real battle is being fought at the gas pumps, not City Hall. On Thursday, we were told, the price of gasoline went up by another four cents. That’s on top of another increase earlier in the week.

Analysts say the collapse of Muammar Gadhafi’s Libya is to blame, but the forces at play will long outlast the Colonel.

We have heard all this before, of course, and by now have grown tired, even resentful, of the warnings, the dire predictions and apocalyptic prognostications. The constant exhortations to put aside the old polluting ways and shift to greener pastures, healthier lifestyles, to walk, ride a bike, and eat better have made us deaf to such pleas.

It turns out that latte-loving, Isotoner-wearing Toronto is really a Tim Hortons kind of town. Bring on the drive-thrus and cheer as Rob Ford rides the backlash all the way to city hall.

In the meantime, congestion grows steadily worse. Just getting around has never been more frustrating, and daily commuting times in the Toronto region rate with the worst in North America.

Clearly then, even if the price of gas weren’t so high, the automobile is fast becoming a liability.

Yet we remain dependent upon it. And not just dependent, but abjectly, utterly, completely so. For many of us, it is already too late. Vast swaths of the GTA couldn’t function without the car — no matter what the price. There can be no hope of change.

Besides, the other big problem here — namely, lack of alternatives — has reached critical mass. The need for more buses, LRTs and subways has been obvious for years. Our inability to anticipate demand points to a failure of governance and leadership on the deepest levels.

Also obvious is the need to get cars and trucks off the road. When Ford killed the $60 vehicle registration tax, he made no attempt to hide how pleased he was with himself. And no doubt, thousands of Torontonians cheered him on.

But the decision disturbs those who care about the city because it was clearly designed to serve personal political ends at the cost of civic well-being. In other words, the money is desperately needed.

To opponents, however, the tax represented an attack on the car, which is an attack on them.

How ironic, then, that the price of gas should skyrocket at the very moment when Toronto gleefully abandons its campaign to get people out of their vehicles. Perhaps because we have failed to provide other options, Torontonians have lost faith in public transit.

In fact, there’s little the mayor of Toronto can do about the politics of oil, except to prepare the city for what lies ahead, a reality that, though unknown, won’t look like anything we’re used to. That means the usual stuff — transit, bike lanes, green roofs, all those things that we’ve had up to our ears.

While all eyes at city hall are focused on 2012, when Ford’s first real budget comes down, few ponder where Toronto will be 30, 40 or 50 years from now.

This generation has been living off infrastructural investments made in the 1950s and ’60s. We benefit from the original Yonge subway, for example, much more than did those who built it half a century ago.

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What sort of a city will our children inherit from us?

Christopher Hume can be reached at chume@thestar.ca