These two youngsters with a big appetite for Bay Area public transit took on the task of seeing if they could ride all 24 Clipper Card-using transit agencies within a 24-hour period, and actually pulled it off by a hair.
We have seen and enjoyed the exploits of various public transit thrillseekers who try to “back door” their way into public transportation fame. There were the Berkeley kids who set a World Record for hitting all 50 BART stations in six hours, and a 2022 stunt where the Chronicle’s Heather Knight and Peter Hartlaub tried to ride all 27 Bay Area transit agencies on the same day (they did not quite complete this). But today’s Chronicle reports on a new dynamic transit duo who attempted another grand odyssey, by riding all 24 Bay Area transit services that use a Clipper Card in 24 hours. This is their story.
These two gentlemen are graphic designer Jay Sathe, who’s done some work for BART, and Miles Taylor, who hops all across the country recording transit stunts for his Miles on Transit Youtube channel. (A video of this exploit is promised to be forthcoming, though not yet posted.)
27 agencies, 24 hours. @milesintransit.bsky.social and I are attempting to do the impossible: ride every Clipper Card accepting transit agency in one day.
— bsquiklehausen (@bsquiklehausen.com) February 6, 2025 at 4:11 PM
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Their trek can be followed in a series of Bluesky threads, the first of which is above. While they initially thought this would require riding 27 agencies, they quickly discovered it was just 24. Starting just after 4pm last Thursday, they started on a Golden Gate Ferry to Marin, used well-known transit services like BART, Muni, Caltrain, and Samtrans, plus far-flung, lesser-known, regional services like the Dumbarton Express, Solano County’s SolTrans, and the Vacaville City Coach.
Morale dropping after it's gotten dark and wet as we wait for a bus
— bsquiklehausen (@bsquiklehausen.com) February 6, 2025 at 6:29 PM
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And indeed this was an all-nighter, as the pair had to get in their late-night rides on 24-hour services, like VTA and the Union City Transit. But they found connections between all of these pretty easy, even at the wee hours when nothing but transit services were operating.
“We got a ton of comments like, 'Wow, be sure to enjoy the Bay’s fractured, fragmented transportation network,'” Sathe told the Chronicle. “And over the 24 hours, with a couple exceptions, it was not that fractured or fragmented.”
THE NUMBERS ARE IN. WE DID IT! 24 HOURS EXACTLY.
— bsquiklehausen (@bsquiklehausen.com) February 7, 2025 at 5:40 PM
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And these young men did complete their task in the allotted 24 hours, ending their trek at the Vacaville Transportation Center. They had budgeted the whole trip, deducing the whole thing would cost them $116 apiece. Yet as the Chronicle notes, that tab “was $40 to $50 cheaper because of unexpected transfer discounts and a couple agencies with broken fare boxes that didn’t require payment.”
Related: Crazy Berkeley Kids Appear to Have Set Guinness World Record for Fastest-Ever ‘BART Speedrun’
Image: @bsquiklehausen.com via Bluesky
