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Swiss capital Bern loses half its cycle campaign funding after vote blunder

Green councillors in Bern mistakenly pressed the green button not the red one when issue

A campaign to get more people cycling in the Swiss capital, Bern, will have less than half the funding that was anticipated after city councillors pressed the wrong button to vote through the budget for it.

Councillors voted yesterday on how much money to allocate to a three-year campaign called ‘Cycling is Cool’ due to be launched in the new year.

With most councillors backing the campaign, which aims to get more people cycling in the city, it was expected that the approval of a 750,000 Swiss Franc (£573,000) budget would be a formality.

Or it would have been, had confusion not intervened, reports 20minutes.ch.

Patrick Wyss revealed that he had pressed the wrong button in the chamber’s electronic voting system.

To compound his mistake, ensured that his fellow councillors in Green Free List party made the same error.

They should have pressed the green button, but instead pressed the red one – meaning that there was not the necessary majority to approve the full funding.

Instead, the initiative will receive a grant of 350,000 Swiss Francs (£267,000) for the three-year period – or 46.7 per cent of what was expected.

“I misunderstood the president of the council and thought the vote was for a different motion,” Wyss said.

 Once he became aware of his error, he asked for the vote to be held again, but the president of the council declined to agree to his request, saying it had been lodged too late.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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5 comments

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ConcordeCX | 6 years ago
5 likes

Bloody cyclists, can’t tell the difference between red and green. Still, they should be allowed to backpedal.

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Grahamd | 6 years ago
1 like

What incompetence, thank goodness we don’t give politicians the ability to wage war at the push of a button...

Avatar
brooksby replied to Grahamd | 6 years ago
2 likes

Grahamd wrote:

What incompetence, thank goodness we don’t give politicians the ability to wage war at the push of a button...

My kids watched a film called Monsters vs Aliens in which the big button for 'launch nuclear weapons ' is right next to the identical big button which operates the coffee machine.

Avatar
Edsonytic replied to brooksby | 6 years ago
0 likes

brooksby wrote:

Grahamd wrote:

What incompetence, thank goodness we don’t give politicians the ability to wage war at the push of a button...

My kids watched a film called Monsters vs Aliens in which the big button for 'launch nuclear weapons ' is right next to the identical big button which operates the coffee machine.

https://youtu.be/L1CxlyMoFRs

Avatar
brooksby | 6 years ago
0 likes

Ah, professional politicians, eh... Dontcha love 'em

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