Today is National Make a Friend Day and the Transbay Coalition has volunteers at bus stops, ferry terminals, BART and CalTrain stations to encourage commuters to talk to each other.
Florance Zhang and Alisa Karesh were outside the North Berkeley BART station this morning, handing out stickers where people could write their name and one thing they wanted to talk about.
The idea is that these nametags will help people break the ice.
Alisa said that when they lived in a small town they would see the same people on the bus every day "so it was a lot easier to make a friend since we were all taking it at the same exact time.”
Though the Bay Area’s transit system is more sprawling and heavily trafficked, Florance thinks that public transit is a particularly good place to make friends.
"It brings so many people together to places where they need to be, places where they want to be, for fun and for work," she said. " It's almost like being neighbors every day.”
The Transbay Coalition is hosting socials in several different Bay Area counties tonight so that residents have a way to stay connected with their transit neighbors.
Here are the locations where you can join in on the fun:
- Oakland Library, César E. Chávez Branch (5p-7p)
- 44 Montgomery St, San Francisco (5:30p-7:30p)
- Next Level Board Game Cafe in Mountain View (6p-8p)
- Boba & More in Dublin (6p-8p)
- Victory Point Cafe in Berkeley (6p-8p)
