Peg measures the well-being of community year over year – in ways that count. It reports on everything from the health of babies born in Winnipeg right through to how many of them graduate 18 years later. It tracks how much garbage we take to the landfill, how to move around the city and how time is spent. It’s through Peg that Winnipeggers can learn how their life, their neighbourhood, and their city is changing. Peg is a starting place for Winnipeg’s citizens, business owners, and policy makers to learn the facts so they can lead change to create a better city. Peg is a community indicator system, tracking measures called “indicators” that reflect and measure our city’s well-being. The indicators, developed by more than 800 Winnipeggers, community groups and data experts, are grouped into eight theme areas: Built Environment, Basic Needs, Economy, Education & Learning, Health, Natural Environment, Social Vitality & Governance and Demographics.

OpenSidewalks leverages collaborative collection and sharing of data in OpenStreetMap, an open database of geographic information. OpenSidewalks is led by the Taskar Center for Accessible Technology (TCAT) at the University of Washington, whose mission is to develop and deploy technologies that improve quality of life for people with disabilities.

It works through putting together a “By-name list” – a comprehensive list of every person in a community experiencing homelessness, updated in real time. Using information collected and shared with their consent, each person on the list has a file that includes their name, homeless history, health, and housing needs.By maintaining a by-name list, communities are able to track the ever changing size and composition of their homeless population. They know current and detailed information on every homeless person in a given subpopulation.

The City conducted a web survey & also randomly interviewed people in the street. The “pandemic tracks”, these protected cycle paths installed on major arteries in the city, have garnered a very high level of support to the tune of 80%+, despite demonstrations by businesses in some spots. The pedestrianization of certain commercial arteries for the summer period was also greatly appreciated, shows the same survey – between 74 to 83%.This includes the allowances made so that restaurant owners could enlarge their terraces to enable more outdoor seating. 

Montreal’s public health authority is asking citizens to participate in a web-based data-gathering project called flatten.ca, or aplatir.ca, designed to track COVID-19 cases to better understand how it is spreading in the city.