Interview with Bicycle Trip Owner Michel Berri
Berri Michel is the owner of the Bicycle Trip, a bike shop on the Eastside of Santa Cruz that has been a bastion of bicycle advocacy since it opened its doors 25 years ago. People Power's director, Micah Posner, caught up with Berri as she was editing a flyer for Bike Fest, the Trip's annual celebration of the bicycle on May 20th.
MICAH: As you know, we will soon be getting bike lanes on Soquel from Seabright to Capitola, east of your store. You were instrumental in getting the lanes from Ocean to Seabright 10 years ago. Tell me about that.
BERRI: It was a long time ago… the lanes went in 10 years ago, and we worked for 10 years to get them, so we started asking for them 20 years ago. Now everyone seems real happy with them. Sometimes these things take a long time, but we've got to get the plans in motion. It may take 15, 20 or 50 years to see projects completed. But if we don't get the plans in there, we'll never see improvements. I think all the work we did 20 years ago is finally making Santa Cruz an okay place to ride. In another 10 or 20 years it will really be great.
MICAH: What inspires you to have that kind of diligence?
BERRI: Lots of reasons. Kids can have freedom riding places without their parents and they can grow up feeling safe about that kind of freedom. Also congestion, caring about the environment. Pollution. Monterey Bay. I remember hearing the Surfriders talking about oil running off our streets into the Bay and thinking, if only people could ride bicycles… For some reason, all these years I've been here I keep thinking of ways to get people to ride and to help them do it safely. I know everyone who works here at the Trip feels the same way.
MICAH: You and I are working together to set up a "Bike Shop in Schools" program that we hope will replace auto shop classes across the country. How'd you come up with that idea?
BERRI: I just thought we'd teach the kids to love bikes. And then, maybe a few years down the line, when they were driving around getting sick of congestion and gas prices and all that, they'd remember how much they loved their bikes back in high school and maybe get back on them. Or at least they'd be more careful driving around. Sometimes I'm not sure exactly what to do, but I know that bicycling is a part of the solution and that we've got to do something.