Public works committee approves transit, public works budgets after 11-hour marathon meeting

Spending plans for Winnipeg Transit and the city's public works department have cleared their first hurdle at city hall despite concerns about the proposed elimination of a university student bus pass and parking rates in the Exchange District.

City council's public works committee voted unanimously late Thursday to approve the Winnipeg Transit and public works budgets for 2020.

This took place at the end of an 11-hour meeting where more than three dozen delegates appeared before the committee to express dissatisfaction with aspects of the budget, most notably the decision to cancel the U-Pass,which provides unlimited transit access for university students.

Councillors Matt Allard (St. Boniface), Devi Sharma (Old Kildonan), Vivian Santos (Point Douglas) and Jeff Browaty (North Kildonan) approved transit's $206-million operating budget and the $152-million public works operating budget without making any amendments.

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Browaty, however, slammed the elimination of the U-Pass, which university students endorsed in plebiscites last year.

"I would feel somewhat betrayed by the way this all played out," Browaty said just before midnight, noting university students were in the middle of voting on a new version of the pass last fall while members of council's executive policy committee were mulling the elimination of the pass.

"I think that was unacceptable and very disgusting on behalf of some of my colleagues on council," Browaty said.

The U-Pass is slated to disappear in June. It would bereplaced by a post-secondary student bus pass that offers a 32-per-cent discount on full-fare transit passes.

The transit budget also calls for reducing service on 14 transit routes and eliminating the Downtown Spirit bus while introducing a low-income bus pass on May 1 and expanding transit service in southwest Winnipeg, where the entire length of the Southwest Transitway is slated to open.

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Council's public works committee was also told Winnipeg Transit plans to save $708,000 this year by cleaning buses once every 13 weeks instead of once every 11 weeks and also scaling back the frequency of transit-shelter cleaning.

Councillors did not ask administrators any questions about this.

The committee also heard pleas to reduce parking rates in the Exchange, but no changes were made to those rates.

This portion of the budget moves on to executive policy committee. Council votes on the budget on March 25.