Playing the odds

Analysis

Odds a campaign will make a promise they can't keep - bet on it (emphasis mine in this and all citations in this post):

Students United will also lobby Winnipeg Transit in conjunction with other students' unions in Winnipeg for improvements to bus service to all campuses, and cheaper fares for students. A subsidized annual bus pass for U of M students and a more organized carpool system, including incentives like better parking and more park & rides closer to campus are also in the cards.

They're in the cards? They must be bluffing. Here's former UMSU President Amanda Aziz talking about a U-Pass in 2003:

Aziz [...] said that UMSU should work towards a “U-Pass” arrangement in which all students pay a fee for transit. "At the U of Vic right now, students pay $11 per month for a bus pass, unlike the $55 we pay here," she said.

Kalyn Bomback, candidate for President in 2005:

We’ve met with the administration and they are ready to work on a number of parking initiatives — one being the extension of the toonie lot; potentially extending the shuttle service [and] working [with] UMSU for joint-subsidization of bus passes.

Aziz again at the UMSU AGM in 2006:

Some alternative means of improving transportation to the U of M that Aziz mentioned were park-and-rides, more carpooling and the creation of a universal buss pass (UPass) to help reduce the amount of vehicles on the road.

In March of last year, the Manitoban reported that discussions had begun anew in February 2007. Ten months later, an article is published quoting VP (External) Amanda Johnson trying to explain why the discussions went nowhere:

Amanda Johnson, vice-president (external) of UMSU, said that, in 2004, UMSU’s plan to integrate the U-Pass to the U of M and other Winnipeg post-secondary institutions was a combined effort put forward by student governments at both U of M and the University of Winnipeg.

So what's the big deal? Plenty of other universities have a U-Pass. The best answer available is buried at the very bottom of a Manitoban article:

The University of Manitoba Students’ Union initiated discussions with Winnipeg Transit in 2004, but the U-Pass would have cost $222.30 for a 3.9-month period. Johnson said that the current amount that a student pays for a four-month period is currently $228 at $57 a month (the price of a post-secondary bus pass), so the saving is only six dollars.

Ken Allen, a corporate communications officer at Winnipeg Transit, said that in 2004, Transit surveyed 1,500 students about their desire for a U-Pass. “A calculation was made for the estimation that would have to be included in student fees for the U-Pass [and] this information was provided to the respective student union and the decision was made not to pursue the U-Pass,” he said.

Allen said that he is not aware of further plans to pursue the U-Pass among Winnipeg universities.

To be fair, the campaign is only promising to lobby Winnipeg Transit. Well I promise they'll lobby them too, just like every administration since 2004. Quoting Albert Einstein:

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.