If he fails to cancel this then he is basically a lame duck failure of a mayor right from the start
Hmmm... I don't get that impression at all. Maybe it's just me, but I'm not convinced.
I think voters are pre-occupied with the car tax, property taxes, real estate taxes, and overspending.
ie. If he overspends needlessly on the transit changes, then people will sit up and take notice. If he comes back and says "I'm not overly enthused with Transit City's plan, but it would be an even bigger waste of money to stop everything" people won't care as much, esp. if he comes back and freezes and/or removes taxes, while maintaining the
visible city services without going hugely into debt. That would be spun as a turnaround in the city's finances by Ford's friends, and I'm inclined to think the population of Toronto would buy into it, even if he fails to accomplish anything with his transit "plan".
The thing that I think gets lost in these discussions is that Transit City really is an attempt to keep the TTC's operating costs from rising too much while still providing high-capacity rapid transit. Any new suburban subways essentially work out to million dollar holes in an operating budget that is already difficult to sustain.
Well, that's ultimately irrelevant from the voter standpoint. The impression I get is that if costs don't skyrocket from Transit City's estimates, but subways are built, that could realistically be spun into a win, even if it's just a very limited amount.
In fact, if only a limited amount of new subway were built, that would also limit the ongoing operating costs, and of course his group would spin that as reigning in operating budget increases, while at the same time starting to lay a foundation for future transit expansion.
Personally I'd like to see the Eglinton underground get built though, sooner rather than later. Quite honestly I never understood the point of the Scarborough RT either, but then again I only moved to Toronto after it was built.