Winnipeg's new mayor is considering hitting the brakes on the rapid transit project.

Quiet grumbling among several councillors about the system's $51-million first leg has grown louder after mayor-elect Sam Katz announced he wants to re-examine the strategy for designated transit routes and special coaches.

"I'm going to look into it," Katz said yesterday while making preparations for his official swearing-in ceremony at City Hall this afternoon.

"To revisit it is an astute thing to do to be sure we know what we're getting into."

The rapid transit project could cost upward of $400 millin once it's complete, with routes from downtown extending into serval outlying districts. That's money that could be better used on street repair and maintenance, critics charged.

The three levels of government agreed to cost-share the first leg of funding in April, but Premier Gary Doer said yesterday that his government has an "open mind" to reconsidering whether the ambitious transit overhaul should go ahead. Katz has the right to reconsider the project with councillors because he is "the new sheriff in town," Doer said.

Liberal MP Reg Alcock said killing the project is a decision the city can make but added "there would be some cost involved in turning it around" after preliminary work transit officials have done for the past few months.

The system of special bus routes and designated transit lanes on existing thoroughfares — one of former mayor Glen Murray's pet projects — is slated to see a frst leg running from south Main Street to the Universit of Manitoba by 2006.

It's unclear how much work has been completed on that section, but Alcock (Winnipeg South), Manitoba's senior MP, warned the city could run into "liabilities" and find itself paying essentially, for nothing.

"Once you make an arrangement, work gets started," he noted, citing a Toronto mayoral decision to halt a link to a Lake Ontario island airport. "Some of the businesses that were counting on using the island airport have launched civil actions.

Murray told The Sun that he shouldn't weigh in on the city's transit options now that he's left the mayor's office to run for the Grits in Monday's federal election. However, he suggested he wants the project to continue.