In a stiff rebuff 18 months ago, Toronto city council rejected Mayor Rob Ford’s bid to kill Transit City, the extensive network of light rail lines planned all across Toronto.

Ford vowed that day to defy council’s stinging rebuke. This week he got his revenge.

But the mayor’s not done. The battle to get what he incorrectly calls those “damned streetcars” off city streets is only beginning.

The next target is the Sheppard East LRT — a 13-kilometre, $1 billion line originating at the Sheppard subway terminus at Don Mills Rd, and running east clear out to Conlins Rd., near the Toronto zoo.

Then, Ford will go after the Finch Ave. West LRT; and by then lines planned for Jane St., and Don Mills Rd. will be forgotten.

Expect Ford to launch his 2014 re-election campaign in January with a promise to build subways, subways, subways across the city. The fact that he has neither the money nor the know-how is a minor detail lost on Torontonians with a subway fetish.

Monday’s announcement of a $660 million cheque from the federal government adds credence to the mayor’s boasts. The money is earmarked for the extension of the Bloor-Danforth subway north from the Kennedy station terminus to McCowan Rd. and Sheppard Ave. E.; it replaces the aging Scarborough RT.

When city council rescued Transit City from Ford’s clutches in March last year, they voted to replace the Scarborough RT with a LRT — one of four approved. Months later, as Scarborough councillors faced angry constituents, city council mustered enough votes to reverse field and vote for a subway instead. The provincial government got in the act. Facing a by-election in Scarborough Guildwood, the provincial Liberals promised a subway as an RT replacement. They won. Now it’s time to pay up.

The current conflict involving the province, city and federal government is merely about which route the subway would take, not whether it would be LRT or subway.

So, it’s one down, three more to go for Ford.

The mayor feels council will crumble in the face of similar clamour for a subway along Sheppard east. Besides, in taking the Bloor-Danforth subway up to McCowan and Sheppard, why not just veer the subway west to link with the Sheppard subway at Don Mills Rd.?

Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly was already making that case Monday. With one LRT defeated, Ford and his allies feel the rest will fall like dominoes.

More destructively, don’t be surprised if Ford even tries to interrupt construction of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, the $4.9-billion project from Black Creek Dr. to the Kennedy station. Some 10 kilometres of it is buried. Ford could insist the above-ground portions, east of Laird Dr. and into Scarborough, be placed underground.

All these changes cost money — $85 million and counting for the RT flip-flop. Some work is already done on Sheppard. Plus Eglinton. The total will could be hundreds of millions, plus billions of dollars in additional costs.

Then there is the issue of what kind of network we are building. Transit City made sense as a network. LRT lines went from Sheppard and Don Mills out to Morningside. At Markham Rd. it would link with an LRT line veering south to the Bloor-Danforth subway at Kennedy and Eglinton; there it would link with the Egliinton Crosstown LRT.

Now, no one is sure what to make of the mish-mash.

Taking advantage of the chaos they have created, subway proponents will argue that an LRT along Sheppard will be an orphan, so council should make it a subway.

Meanwhile, TTC CEO Andy Byford continues to scream that a downtown relief subway line is the top priority — not the lines occupying everyone’s time. Cost? $7.4 billion. Ridership? 107 million by 2031. Need? Absolutely essential to ease overcrowding on the Yonge and the Bloor-Danforth subway lines.

What are the comparative numbers for Sheppard? The subway would cost maybe twice as much as the $1 billion LRT.

A subway east of Don Mills to McCowan has the capacity for 30,000 passengers per hour; an LRT 8,000. But expected ridership in 2031 will be between 3,000 and 4,500. “Extremely optimistic” projections put ridership at 6,000 per hour. In other words, one-fifth of the subway capacity — if we are delusional about ridership — and below capacity for the LRT.

The main reason for the low numbers is the lack of jobs in the corridor between North York Centre and Scarborough Town Centre. When the Sheppard subway was first envisioned, planners anticipated 160,000 total employment. Today, there are fewer than 50,000 jobs.

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None of this will deter the mayor nor reduce demands for the subway.

Those who throw up their hands and say, “Just build something, anything,” may want to consider what they are unleashing.