DURING the waning days of a civic election, you can expect to see three things: mud-slinging, sign vandalism and much less obnoxiously, a bevy of candidate surveys.

On Thursday, the results of three such questionnaires were released by organizations campaigning for better bike trails, the re-establishment of a police commission and improving downtown Winnipeg.

Here's the Coles Notes version of their findings:

Bike trails

ONE of the big surprises in 2006 has been all the attention paid to Winnipeg's substandard bike-trail infrastructure. As a result, mayoral candidates Sam Katz, Marianne Cerilli and Kaj Hasselriis have all pledged to make improvements.

To gauge how serious Winnipeg's 52 mayoral and council candidates are about cycling, a group calling itself Bike To The Future sent them all a four-point survey about the likes of trail-creation funding and the implementation of the recommendations of Winnipeg's largely ignored Active Transportation Study.

Katz received a C grade, while Hasselriis and Cerilli both earned As. Nine council candidates also received top marks, including Fort Rouge incumbent Jenny Gerbasi, Daniel McIntyre incumbent Harvey Smith, Mynarski challenger Paul Emmer and all six Winnipeg Green Party candidates.

"We're excited to see so much support for cycling, but the specific (amount of) support varies from candidate to candidate," said Bike To The Future spokeswoman Molly McCracken.

But she was disappointed that two of Winnipeg's more bike-friendly city councillors -- River Heights Coun. Donald Benham and Point Douglas Coun. Mike Pagtakhan did not respond.

Police commission

ANOTHER low-key but significant issue this year is whether city hall should re-establish a civilian body to oversee the Winnipeg Police Service. Tom Simms, of the Community Education Development Association, has led a coalition of 29 inner-city groups in a push for a police commission. He sent a survey to all 52 candidates, asking them simply if they would like to see an inter-governmental committee issue a feasibility report about a police commission before April 2007.

Among the candidates who responded, only three were dead-set against the idea: mayoral hopeful Ron Pollock and St. James candidates Jae Eadie and Fred Morris.

"Overall, the candidates who responded are interested in pursuing the idea of a police commission," Simms said.

But seven candidates only expressed conditional support, while Katz said he would prefer to see the results of a report his cabinet has already requested.

Downtown Winnipeg

FINALLY, the Downtown Winnipeg BIZ sent a seven-point questionnaire to Winnipeg's mayoral candidates and the five council hopefuls vying to represent the city's two downtown wards, Fort Rouge and Daniel McIntyre.

Given the open-ended nature of the questionnaire, most candidates took the opportunity to cut-and-paste previous campaign promises into their responses to queries about the likes of downtown housing and crime-reduction. Still, BIZ executive director Stefano Grande said he was satisfied with the survey.