There’s one year left in his four-year term, but Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman hasn’t completed all of his campaign promises.
Bowman is slowly checking off his to-do list and on Thursday one of his promises came to fruition – opening a downtown off-leash dog park at Bonnycastle Park on Assiniboine Avenue.
There’s still more work to be done. The iconic Portage and Main intersection is still closed to pedestrians. Bowman promised to have it open by 2019. The latest? City council put aside money for improvements to the intersection and a plan to reintroduce it to pedestrians.
The mayor also increased dollars for road construction from $84 million in 2014, a total of $103 million in 2015 and $105 in 2016. It’s since stalled at $105 million for 2017 as well.
And if Bowman only has less than one year left in office, more road repairs is his priority.
“It’s not sexy like other things but it’s very important for a growing and thriving city,” he said.
Completing Rapid Transit by 2030 was another ambitious campaign pledge. He promised to open all six legs but the first won’t be finished until 2019.
“We still have a lot of work to do but it’s absolutely one that I remain committed to,” he said.
Adding Wi-Fi on city buses hasn’t happened yet either, but the city is launching a pilot project on January 1, 2018 where up to 12 buses will be outfitted with free Wi-Fi for the year.
Having a more transparent city was another pledge from Bowman. He’s hanging his hat on a 2017 report from the Public Sector Digest that put Winnipeg in third for most open cities.
So far there have been no high-profile mayoral challengers for the next election in October 2018.
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