Surf your way to work

Here’s an idea to increase the appeal of public transit: free Wi-Fi on city buses. More than 20 U.S. cities now offer some form of Wi-Fi on their buses or trains and/or in transit stations. Within Canada, wee little Moncton introduced the service on four of its express routes last fall.
Given the growing popularity of [...]

Russ is right about the RTTF…sorta

Councillor Russ Wyatt is right that the City of Winnipeg’s Rapid Transit Task Force (RTTF) was a complete waste of time and money, but not just for the reasons he cited in Tuesday’s Free Press.
If you recall, the RTTF was the Mayor’s attempt to placate transit advocates who were pissed at him for canceling the [...]

When seeking public opinion, look beyond the mirror

Brodbeck’s been drinking too much of his own kool-aid again. Public outrage over the NDP’s proposed changes to campaign finance legislation? Only if you restrict your definition of “the public” to card-carrying members of PC Manitoba.
Seriously, the crowd in that committee room was like a rogue’s gallery of past and present Tory staffers and campaigners. [...]

An idea I can get behind

I’ve been keeping an eye on chrisd.ca for the past few weeks, and now that he’s posting bikini pictures of Winnipeg newsbabes I think it’s only fair to share with the rest of you.
For what it’s worth Chris, I think a Winnipeg media bikini competition is one of the greatest ideas in the history of [...]

Online political video done right

A note to provincial Tories or any other local politicos, this is how you make a compelling online political video:

Click here if the video embed doesn’t work properly.
The early days of a better nation…that’s awesome.
On May 20, 2008, Sam Adams was elected the next Mayor of Portland, Oregon.

New diamond lanes are a start, but…

I agree with Graham that the city’s plan to add a few new diamond lanes on Henderson, Regent and McPhillips is a good start, but I do wonder if these specific measures will have much of an impact on travel times.
The new Henderson lane is in a great spot (near downtown), but it’s only 300 [...]

Could someone buy Hugh a camcorder?

Three things before we get to the video:

Using YouTube to get your message out is a great idea. Recording your videos on someone’s old Razr phone? Not so much.

Hugh, please ban the use of the word “Communist” from your vocabulary.

In the email that accompanied this video the Tories say Bill 37 will be “charging Manitobans [...]

Green by example

One line that stood out to me in Sunday’s Freep profile on efforts to green the Manitoba Legislative Building:
…the province is assessing whether to join the employer-subsidized Eco-Pass program through Winnipeg Transit.
Assessing? The Province should have hopped on board this program years ago. How many provincial civil servants work in Winnipeg? 10,000? 20,000? And most [...]

Regrets, I’ve had a few…

All this talk of Vic Toews retiring and/or receiving a judicial appointment begs a few questions:
1. If Vic goes, who becomes Manitoba’s senior federal minister? My uneducated guess would be Fletcher, but please Stephen, no Joy!
2. If Hugh McFadyen had stuck to his original political career plan, and won Winnipeg South for the federal Conservatives, [...]

Who writes this crap?

As a follow-up to my last post, I thought I’d direct you to McFadyen’s op-ed piece from Tuesday’s Freep on the province’s proposed electoral reforms. Geez, I don’t think I’ve seen him this angry since that “grr…communists!” speech from a few years back.
Seriously, just take a look at the first paragraph:

The NDP has introduced a [...]