For a bank president, Gord Nixon comes across as, well, savvy. Maybe that’s because the head of Royal Bank of Canada is from Montreal, or because he spent a chunk of his early career in Japan. Or maybe it’s his investment-dealer background; as anyone who has worked in the financial markets knows, you have to move fast to make money.

The head of the country’s largest financial services institution has a busy schedule, naturally. But one thing Nixon seems to have a lot of time for is the “wealth of cities” file. He has given a number of speeches recently focused on the crucial roles that cities play in the national economy. Nixon’s company is in the business of benefiting from prosperity, and he is putting his considerable influence behind the idea — not always popular — that national wealth, profitable companies and the health of cities are inextricably connected.

During a recent RBC-sponsored conference in Toronto on civic engagement and economic development, Nixon noted that the “potential in our cities is limitless.” But he also pointed out that Toronto has a long way to go: “One just has to ride the subway, visit certain neighbourhoods, drive our congested roads to experience the social and physical problems we face.”

Nixon called for civic engagement — typically, of the non-partisan sort — to address these steadily worsening issues. But what’s the use, when those guarding municipal coffers would rather score political points than address fundamental needs?

At the same conference, I ran into a transportation expert who had a few things to say about the debacle that is now Toronto’s “plan” for transit renewal. The expert said that the previous scheme to connect the four corners of Toronto, known as Transit City and put forward by former mayor David Miller (who also did the heavy lifting when it came to squeezing billions out of Ontario for the much needed overhaul), was not optimal. But at least, the expert said, it was a viable plan. Abruptly killing the entire Transit City scheme and using the same money to replace it with a single, 1960s-style crosstown subway — the decision of new mayor Rob Ford — has “set the city back by 20 years,” the expert said.

And that’s without mentioning the $50 million or so that Ford had to flush away after cancelling existing transit contracts.

The cancellation of Transit City was done with foresight-free, top-down disregard for the thousands of low-and middle-income Torontonians who would have cut hours from their commuting times with Transit City. Ford — who consistently ducks tough questions, instead using big brother Doug to defend him in the schoolyard — claims to be the taxpayer’s friend. He also suggests that governments should run more like businesses.

But taxpayers are also city dwellers whose financial stability suffers when they can’t get around in a timely fashion. Even drivers won’t benefit much, with little easing expected for Toronto’s chronic gridlock.

Would any smart company hang up its employees this way? I doubt it. Too hard on the bottom line. And very limiting when it comes to growth.

And that’s why Ford’s tunnel vision has already stifled the futures of so many of the people who voted for him — taxpayers who really, really need to get to work on time. IE