Times runs electric bike story with no mention of oil industry obstructionism

Just boggles our mind that in 2010 the Times could run a story about electric bikes with no research into, or mention of, the oil industry's decades of opposition to this means of transportation that is a fearsome threat to oil company hegemony.

Times, just what the heck are you doing over there?

An Electric Boost for Bicyclists
By J. DAVID GOODMAN

SHANGHAI — Jiang Ruming, a marketing manager, owns a van, but for many errands, he hops on a futuristic-looking contraption that lets him weave rapidly through Shanghai’s messy traffic. He rides an electric bicycle.

Half a world away, in San Francisco, the president of that city’s board of supervisors, David Chiu, uses an electric bike to get to meetings without sweating through his suit.

And in the Netherlands, Jessy Wijzenbeek-Voet recently rode an electric bicycle on a long trip that, at 71, she would not have been able to make on a standard bike.

Detroit may be introducing electric car designs and China may be pushing forward with a big expansion of its highways and trains. But people like Mr. Jiang, Ms. Wijzenbeek-Voet and Mr. Chiu — as well as delivery workers in New York, postal employees in Germany and commuters from Canada to Japan — are among the millions taking part in a more accidental transportation upheaval...more...