Mayor Sam Katz is still mum on his vision for a rapid transit system, despite a poster campaign designed to pressure him into action and complaints by councillors that transit has fallen off his radar.

Some member of Katz's rapid transit task force fear months spent developing a workable blueprint for rapid trnsit could be wasted unless Katz throws his political heft behind it.

"There is a concern that there is not the gusto behind rapid transit, that we're not going to see our report acted upon," said Coun. Jenny Gerbasi, who sits on the task force. "It's kind of a dark cloud hanging over the committee."

Katz's rapid transit task force has tabled a draft $270-million plan that includes two dedicated bus-only corridors -- one from Osborne Village to the University of Manitoba and another along Nairn Avenue from Kildonan Place to Archibald Street.

The plan also calls for "quality corridors" along major routes that include red diamond lanes, buses with the ability to override traffic signals, special fare-collection kiosks and other improvements.

Members of the group Winnipeggers for Bus Rapid Transit support the plan and have launched a poster campaign to rescue it from what they fear could be political oblivion.

Posters have been appearing downtown that show a cartoon of a smiling Katz waiting at a bus stop under the caption "Hey Sam! It's time to get on board!"

Dave Leibl, spokesman for the loose coalition of young activists, said the group wants to turn up the heat on Katz before the task force delivers its final recommendations to city council in September.

The mayor has been fantasically elisive about where he stands," said Leibl. "We just get the sense he would like the whole issue of transit infrastructure to go away."

Katz cancelled a similar plan for bus rapid transit last fall, redirecting $34 million in federal and provincial tansit funding to recreation centres and forming the task force to rethink the BRT plan.

Katz was still hedging his bets on rapid transit yesterday, refusing to say whether he likes the task force's preliminary ideas.

"If you have a task force, the most astute thing to do is to let them complete their report," said Katz.

But he did repeat an earlier suggestion that he favours making improvements to the existing service before building anything new.