BART's 1st-Ever Speed Dating 'Valentraine' Event Gives Riders a Shot at Love

Love was on the minds of many as a solitary train pulled into the Downtown Berkeley BART station just after 7 p.m. Friday. There a few hundred Bay Area singles, ages 18 to 35, were anxiously waiting on the platform for the first-ever BART speed dating event.

After it was announced just ten days prior, tickets sold out in about two hours, said Alicia Trost, chief communications officer for BART.

Once they boarded the train cars, the crowd was separated by age — 18- to 21-year-olds in the front cars, 21 to 25 in the middle cars, and 25 to 35 toward the back. The train ran nonstop for a two-hour roundtrip ride from downtown Berkeley to the Mission District and back.

Friends and coworkers Lexi Skelton (center) of Oakland, and Torian Wright (right) of Emeryville, check in for a speed dating event aboard a BART train with BART principal marketing representative Michelle Robertson. Wright heard about the event on Instagram and told Skelton about it. (David M. Barreda/KQED)

BART employee Nequavis Brown (left) directs people to the check-in area for a speed dating event organized by BART, called ‘Valentraine.’ BART distributed a list of ice-breaker questions (right), including, ‘What is your favorite BART memory?’, ‘If you were an alien observing human behavior, what would be the most confusing thing to you?’ and ‘What’s the weirdest thing about you?’ (David M. Barreda/KQED)

Bay Area singles (left) line up to board a BART train for ‘Valentraine.’ Friends Lena (left) and Zara, both of whom declined to share last names, record an interview for BART while waiting to board the train. Lena said that when she first saw the announcement about the Valentine’s night event on BART’s website, she thought it was fake, but later saw it on Instagram and realized it was real. (David M. Barreda/KQED)

The event was the idea of Erica Mitchell (right). (David M. Barreda/KQED)

The event is the brainchild of Erica Mitchell, who works at a civil engineering firm in Oakland — and is a self-professed public transportation lover — whose father previously worked for BART. She said she got the idea during an interview for a BART commercial back in 2023.

As the train pulled away from the platform, cars full of college students, behavioral scientists, animators, fin-tech employees, data engineers, and other public transportation lovers looked to see if any sparks would fly as they headed more than 130 feet under the Bay.