WHEN Mayor Sam Katz said No to a new mass transit system for Winnipeg on Tuesday, he made his No sound as much as possible like Yes. He intends to fix up Winnipeg's 71 community clubs with the money that Ottawa and the province had agreed to supply for a start on the mass transit system, he announced. Mass transit will be a part of Winnipeg's future, he added, but it's a question of priorities. Mass transit can be considered after the city enjoys a new deal ensuring a growing revenue stream to pay for construction of such a system.

Support for community clubs is sure to be popular on the council because every ward includes several community clubs and every councillor values the opportunity to win friends among the community club volunteers by brining tax money to improve the building and grounds. The Southwest Transit Corridor, the first phase of the proposed mass transit system, would directly affect only three districts, Fort Rouge, River Heights, Fort Garry, and St. Norbert.

Three votes cannot carry a project in a 15-seat council. It is far from clear when the proposed system might be expanded to benefit a majority of the 15 city wards.

Mayor Katz sugar-coated the bitter pill because the mass transit project is attractive and enjoys significant support in the city. Transit is especially important to students, an age group that Mr. Katz appealed to as mayoral candidate. He campaigned as the candidate who would make Winnipeg more attractive to young people.

Winnipeg needs to make its transit system a great deal more efficient and attractive. Transit is losing its share of the Winnipeg commuter market because it is being improved only slowly in tiny steps while public tastes and expectations require much quicker service, more comfort, more convenience. If Mayor Katz allows transit to slide deeper into obsolescence, the roads will become more obnoxious to live in and more of the young people Mr. Katz counts on will slip away to Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and the other Canadian cities that offer their citizens modern mass transit systems.

For these reasons, Mayor Katz will have to apply the necessary effort to design a mass transit system for Winnipeg, build political support for it and find the money to build and operate it. This should not be difficult because a great deal of the prepatory work has already been done.

He should let the public and the senior governments know what sort of new deal he has in mind. He should design a reform package that he can sell to Premier Gary Doer and the government. He should at the same time look at transit properties in other cities to see how far behind Winnipeg has fallen. He should conceive a system that council will support and he should invite Mr. Doer to help him put together the financial package that will pay for it. Mass transit will be part of Winnipeg's future, happen.