The “War on the Car” may be over, but the War on the City has only just begun.

After mere hours on the job, Toronto’s newest mayor can already claim to have done more damage to this city than most chief magistrates manage in an entire career.

No doubt they were cheering in Etobicoke, Scarborough and North York as Ford announced he had killed Transit City — though that remains to be seen — but they are the ones who will bear the brunt of his shortsightedness in the years and decades ahead. Indeed, unless council turns out to be exceptionally strong, Ford’s foolishness will set Toronto back immeasurably.

With Ford at the helm, Toronto is set to become Buffalo North, a fate that most likely would please His Worship; after all, the traffic there hums along ever so nicely.

The irony, of course, is that this one-note mayor who rode the “gravy train” to office, along with a promise to “end the waste at city hall,” will now preside over the squandering, among other things, of a $8.1 billion mass transit plan that would have brought mobility to thousands who now spend their lives waiting for the bus to arrive.

Be careful what you wish for, they say, and Torontonians will have four years to discover the truth of these words.

But even before Ford assumed office Wednesday morning, he had made it clear he would do everything in his power to halt progress. Then came the appointment of North Toronto Councillor Karen Stintz to the all-important position of TTC chair. With that one move, he signaled this isn’t a role he takes seriously.

The platitudinous Stintz immediately switched on the “customer service” tape and began mouthing the now-familiar Fordian refrains about getting our house in order, respect the taxpayer, etc.

But if respect for taxpayers really were the issue, why is Ford in such a rush to throw billions out the window? Even he must know by now that you don’t undo a decade of planning and bickering with the provincial and federal governments — who are, let’s not forget, paying the Transit City bill. They’ll be spending money that comes from the same taxpayers Ford is so anxious to protect.

Ford’s real intention, however, is to rid the roads of streetcars, which, along with bikes and pedestrians, are the main combatants in the aforementioned War on Cars.

“Streets,” Ford has declared, “are for cars, trucks and buses.”

That’s why subways are preferred; they’re out of sight and out of mind. Too bad they cost three to five times as much as the LRTs of Transit City. Too bad the four boring machines bought at a cost of $54 million to tunnel beneath Eglinton aren’t big enough for subways. Too bad a deal has been signed with Bombardier to provide 182 LRVs. And what about those expropriated properties?

And so it goes. Waste piled upon waste.

But the most curious aspect of all is that none of this matters to Ford supporters. For them, he is not politician so much as an enabler. He’s the one who makes it okay to give in to feelings our mothers disapproved of. He’s the one who promises to enshrine selfishness as a civic right. Already Ford has said that road rage forms the basis of his transit policy.

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We won’t have to fret about political correctness any more; those days are officially over. The fact that Ford is also the one who scoffs loudest at those who imagine Toronto actually could be a great city. Those days are over, too.

Christopher Hume can be reached at chume@thestar.ca