Councillor Paula Fletcher is blaming fatigue and city hall technology for her University Ave. mis-vote that has cycling advocates mourning the loss of the ultimate in bike lanes.

It was late Wednesday — almost 10 p.m. — and councillors had been at it for more than 12 hours when voting began on Councillor Suzan Hall’s motion to strip the controversial University Ave. pilot project from a package of new bike lanes.

Deputy speaker Gloria Lindsay-Luby told the 28 councillors in the chamber: “It’s Councillor Hall’s motion deleting the bike lanes on the pilot project on University. Please press your buttons. This is for deletion.”

In a momentous twitch of the finger, Fletcher, a fierce advocate of bike lanes and this proposal to bring median-hugging, protected lanes to busy University for the summer, pressed the green “Yes” button — tilting the balance 15-13 in favour of killing it.

“It had been a very long day . . . and I thought I was voting on the whole enchilada” of more than 30 kilometres of bike paths and lanes, including University, Fletcher (Ward 30, Toronto-Danforth) told the Star on Thursday.

“I realized what I had done and I pushed the red button” to vote “no.” But, when the results were put up on a screen, she was a “yes.”

A councillor howled “Paula!” and she admitted her initial mistake but added: “I pushed the red button!” and asked for a re-vote. Lindsay-Luby ruled that wasn’t allowed if it would change the outcome — the amendment would have failed on a 14-14 tie.

Fletcher said that when she pressed the red button she was still seeing a flashing message indicating voting was open, and wants the technology investigated.

John Elvidge of the city clerk’s office says councillors can change their votes until all have voted. Results are then locked in, he said, with maybe a “millisecond” lag before the computer system indicates voting is closed.

“We don’t think there is a problem with the system,” he said.

Toronto Cyclists Union executive director Yvonne Bambrick watched from the gallery as the project, putting lanes behind solid posts from Richmond St. W. to Wellesley St. W./Hoskin Ave. for three months, suffered its strange death.

“It’s a pretty significant let-down that the most innovative and forward-looking project, when we would finally have physically separated bike lanes in Toronto — the ultimate in protected space for cyclists — should fail in this way,” she said Thursday.

Still, Bambrick doesn’t blame Fletcher. “There’s disappointment, not anger,” she said. “People make mistakes. It’s a distracted, busy environment (at city council) and the meeting had gone long.”

Bambrick noted that, had Fletcher voted as she had intended it’s possible the subsequent vote on the whole package could have been defeated, meaning no new lanes.

“It would have been all or nothing,” she said, adding she’s hopeful the University Ave. project will be proposed next year.

The #bikeTO Twitter feed was buzzing Thursday about what one user dubbed “buttongate.” Some ridiculed Fletcher but others were angrier that 16 councillors and Mayor David Miller — a proponent of the project — weren’t there to vote.

Miller spokesman Stuart Green said: “After hosting the mayor of Torino and then attending the Thousandth Tower (film) event in the rotunda, (Miller) had a personal commitment scheduled for after council was supposed to have ended,” at 8 p.m.

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Mayoral candidate Rocco Rossi, who had said it was “sheer madness” to put the lanes on University and remove two car lanes, was crowing.

“I’m delighted that sanity has prevailed and I have won my first council vote,” joked Rossi, who wants bike lanes put only on secondary roads.

Faye Lyons of the Canadian Automobile Association said her organization is “pleased” the project was killed because the city hadn’t adequately studied its potential impact on vehicle flow.