Anvi M. ’28
Every morning, hundreds of students and teachers board the Caltrain for the morning commute to school.
Every morning, Ian B. ’26 and Marc C. ’27 board Caltrain with the same destination in mind—and it’s not just the Upper School. They want the top spot on the Bay Area-wide leaderboard for most public transit rides.
Co-hosted by Seamless Bay Area and SF Transit Riders, the Bay Area’s Transit Month Ride Contest takes place Sept. 1–30. Riders log their trips across BART, Muni, Caltrain and more to climb both the overall leaderboard and system-specific leaderboards.
“I’m personally only really focusing on the Caltrain leaderboard,” Ian said. “Marc is also doing that so we have a little bit of a—somewhere between friendly and incredibly intense—competition.”
Marc, who lives in San Francisco, focuses on the overall leaderboard through an accumulation of Caltrain and Muni rides. He also works at Muni’s youth advisory board to advocate for programs like Free Muni for All Youth, and “school trippers,” extra afternoon buses sent to routes that start at public schools.
Though spending the majority of his time in the city, Marc still makes regular Caltrain trips to keep up with Ian—and to keep their rivalry alive.
“I don’t know how much I’ll focus on the Caltrain competition, but I do know I can’t let Ian win,” Marc said.
To keep pace, both students have maximized their rides.
“Both of us have figured out a way to take all eight trains per hour in each direction by doing a bunch of really tight connections,” Ian said.
The winner of the Caltrain contest would get a Caltrain-themed skate deck and the chance to win more official prizes.
But between Ian and Marc, the real prize is the bragging rights.
“I think the aim here is to find who is the bigger nerd for Caltrain,” Marc said.
Ian, who commutes in from Pacifica, leans into that title.
“I’m just focusing on Caltrain because I’m a ‘big Caltrain nerd’, let’s say,” Ian said. “Perhaps I want to establish that I’m more of one than Marc.”
For his Quest project last year, Ian gathered and analyzed speedometer data to find the ideal performances of on-time Caltrains.
But beyond the competition, Transit Month aims to shift the Bay Area’s narrative around public transportation—encouraging more people to ride, celebrate, and invest in the systems students like Ian and Marc already rely on every day.
Check out the Caltrain leaderboard on the Ride Contest website to see who pushed ahead—is it Marc, or Mykitbykit (Ian)?