In a sweet victory for streetcar opponents, Rob Ford used his first day as mayor to level a death blow at Toronto’s $8.15 billion, provincially funded Transit City light rail expansion.

It’s a move the province has warned could leave Toronto on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in work already completed and contractual penalties. But Ford wants transit built underground and he wants it done with a speed that, if achievable at all, would be unprecedented for the TTC.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the war on the car stops today . . . Transit City is over,” Ford told reporters Wednesday. “We will not build any more rail tracks down the middle of our streets.”

In his first news conference as mayor, Ford outlined a list of priorities including ending the land transfer and vehicle taxes, creating a task force on customer service and a surprise zero tax increase for 2011.

But it was the swift move to slay Transit City that grabbed attention, as he began his term by summoning the TTC’s top executive to city hall to order a new transit plan — one that would include only underground rail lines, including at least one subway in time for the 2015 Pan Am Games.

“I just wanted to make it quite clear that he understood that Transit City’s over and the war on the car is over and, all new subway expansion is going underground,” Ford said.

TTC chief general manager Gary Webster later told reporters that the 150 staff working on Transit City will begin immediately estimating the cost of underground light rail and subways on both Ford’s campaign plan and the Metrolinx plan.

The goal is to have at least a preliminary plan in front of the new transit commission by January, he said.

Light rail typically costs about $75 million to $100 million per kilometer, while subways cost about $300 million, said Webster. But that difference shrinks somewhat if, instead of full subway technology, you simply put the LRT underground, as is already planned for the centre portions of the Eglinton Crosstown line. LRT stations also tend to be cheaper.

In terms of timelines, “He wants us to work backwards from the Pan Am Games,” said Webster, who admitted he doesn’t know how the TTC will do that.

“We’ve been asked to look at a different staging approach so we could go in the ground sooner,” he said.

Ford was noncommittal about who would be responsible for the $130 million already spent on Transit City as well as the huge penalties likely to be charged if more than $1.3 billion worth of signed contracts are cancelled.

“I’m going to deal with the province with respect to that and take it from there,” Ford said.

The $8.15 billion Transit City plan is being funded entirely by the province, except for about $330 million the federal government was chipping in on the Sheppard LRT. Queen’s Park has promised the money over 10 years, with only $3.1 billion flowing in the first five.

Premier Dalton McGuinty repeated his promise to seek common ground with Ford. But he warned: “If there are changes to be proposed connected with the original plan — and there are costs associated with that — those will be visited upon the council and the people of Toronto.”

If that happens, it will be the fault of the previous city government and Metrolinx, not the new mayor, said Patricia Sinclair, of Save Our Sheppard, a community group that opposed the LRT.

“We’ve screwed ourselves by voting in the wrong people who would not listen,” she said. “I’m sorry these people aren’t going to get LRT, but we need to do the right thing.”

For now, construction already begun on the Sheppard route — involving grade separations with a GO line — will continue as it will be needed whatever the outcome.

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For Steve Munro, who has been waging an uphill battle for light rail for 40 years, Ford’s dismissal of Transit City was a bitter pill — one Munro blames in part on a lack of provincial leadership.

“(Ford’s) comment that, ‘The war on the car is over,’ is telling,” said Munro. “He does not care about transit riders.

“If this action stands with no comeback by Queen’s Park, effectively Metrolinx is a dead duck. It has no purpose at all,” he said.

Everybody loves subways. But we can’t afford them, said Patrice Dutil, associate professor in Ryerson University’s Department of Politics and Public Administration.

He referred to Ford’s subway plan as back-of-the-envelope calculations.

“For the city of Toronto to actually make a plan that will rethink transit on subway lines will take four, five, six, seven years. Mr. Ford will not be mayor at that point,” said Dutil.

At City Hall, some councillors were noting that council as a whole endorsed Transit City and it will take a council vote — not a decision from the mayor alone — to change course.

“So seven years of planning, engineering, etc., goes out the window. We have spent $140 million — the province has — so this is not about fiscal responsibility, this is about fiscal irresponsibility,” said a furious Joe Mihevc, vice-chair of the outgoing TTC board.

But he doesn’t doubt Ford could get majority support if the matter went to a council vote. “We underestimated Rob Ford in the past. I don’t think we would be wise to make that mistake again,” he said.

“Everyone’s going to have a discussion on that,” said Ford. “But I’m the mayor of the city, I have to lead by example and that’s exactly what I’m doing. I ran a platform, as you know of subways, and I was elected on quite a large mandate to delivers subways and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

With files from Paul Moloney and Robert Benzie