The idea of subway trains roaring under the heart of downtown Winnipeg has caught municipal and provincial officials unawares.

They don't know who would pay for a subway costing roughly $265 million to build.

Greater Winnipeg Transit Commission members say a subway would serve all municipalities and so there would have to be a metropolitan form of government to bear the heavy capital costs.

But they bank heavily on provincial and possibly federal aid. They say a subway would serve much the same purpose as surface expressways.

Such thoroughfares have usually received about 50 percent provincial assistance and sometimes 25 percent federal help.

Provincial officials admit this, but they say there is no precedent for government help in building a subway. It would be up to the government to decide whether a subway constitutes, in effect, a cross-town highway.

Toronto's subway was built on a 60-40 basis, according to G. McDermid, transit assistant general manager here. He said Toronto is still twice... government aid for their subway.

Metropolitan Toronto, he said, paid for construction of the subway. Cost of rolling stock, rails and other equipment, amounting to 40 percent of total cost, was paid for by the Toronto Transit Commission.

He said the same system would be used here. The $265 million would be borne by municipalities who would ask government aid. Transit commission would pay about $184 million more for operating equipment.

Today, reaction from Highways Minister Errick Willis down to municipal reeves was: "No comment."

Mainly, they had nothing to say...haven't received copies yet of the Norman Wilson development report on city transit operations. This report prompted the transit commission to suggest start of a subway within five years.