Seven UC Berkeley students completed what appears to be the all-time record time for riding through all 50 BART stations in less than six hours, and they’re being verified to be awarded the Guinness World Record for the fastest BART speedrun.
It is now Saint Patrick’s Day weekend, so you may have Guinness on your mind. Seven UC Berkeley students have Guinness on their mind too, but because of their hopes of being awarded the Guinness World Record for the fastest-ever “speedrun” of all 50 BART stations, according to KRON4. The team of grad students hit all 50 BART stations, and did so in a record time of 5 hours, 47 minutes, and 42 seconds.
The entire, nearly six-hour video of their trip — which was live-streamed on YouTube — can be seen above. They completed this tour on March 9, and applied to have it recognized as a Guinness World Record (which only requires a $5 fee!). Here’s a map of their tour and times, where they started at the Antioch station at 10:32 am, transferred at MacArthur station, completed the entire Richmond-to-Millbrae Red Line, doubled back to Balboa Park station and transferred to the Green Line at 1:40 pm, jumped off at the Oakland Coliseum station at 2:14 pm, dashed out to Dublin/Pleasanton, then traced their way back to the Coliseum and headed south to complete their journey at Berryessa/North San Jose by 4:19 pm.
thanks to @Horus_The_Local for letting me interview him about his group’s record-setting @SFBART speedrunning journey! 🚇 https://t.co/4WeLhwJF6b
— Iris Kwok (@iriskkwok) March 15, 2024
Though as Berkeleyside notes, their trip still has to be verified by the Guinness World Record organization before they are officially awarded the world record. That outlet reports that the verification process involves “statements from the witnesses confirming nothing was doctored, photos showing the time in front of each train station sign, and video evidence.” The verification is expected to take a few months.
Today the BART Board of Directors applauded this group of seven UC Berkeley students who applied to the Guinness World Record to make BART speedruns an official category and then beat the record on Saturday.
— BART (@SFBART) March 14, 2024
They visited all 50 stations in 5 hours, 47 minutes, and 43 seconds. https://t.co/wDlN2THhvH pic.twitter.com/Y5VSqmr0Op
But honestly, is there even a previous record for an all-50-station BART speedrun since Berryessa Station opened in 2020? There are claims of such. One YouTuber called An Eye on Transit says they’ve done it in 5 hours and 49 minutes. A member of a group called Twitter Transit Besties says he did it in 6 hours, 4 minutes and 54 seconds. And in 2021, a character known as Miles in Transit claimed to have pulled it off in 6 hours, 9 minutes and 51 seconds.
Didn’t end up continuing the Twitter thread (because the livestream started to pop off) but we ended with a time of 5:47:43!!! It was an amazing experience, and I can’t wait to share the photos and videos as we start to sort through them all! https://t.co/6DfY6TRBb1
— Horus_The_Local - BART SPEEDRUN RECORD HOLDER!!! (@Horus_The_Local) March 10, 2024
Berkeleyside did a lengthy interview with one of the grad student riders, Ameen DaCosta. “If they build a new station and our record becomes invalid, I would do it again, but only if I had a group of people who are interested as well,” DaCosta told that website.
Considering how long it’s taking to build the next new BART stations in San Jose, this team’s record could probably stand for a very long time.
Related: Punk Bands Rocked Out an Impromptu Live Show On a Moving BART Train Friday Night [SFist]
Image: @SFBART via Twitter