No pants? No problem. Pantsless passengers take over BART for chilly SF commute

Participants at two BART stations in San Francisco received some instructions for their ride on Sunday: Remove your pants before you board.

Over 600 people gathered at the Daly City and MacArthur BART stations for San Francisco’s 12th annual No Pants Subway Ride, according to SF Gate.

Participants were told to take off their pants before boarding the subway, bring $10 to $15 for the subway rides and extra for bar fare, and to be “able to keep a straight face about it,” according to the Facebook event. Commuters were told to wear “normal SF winter clothes without pants” but no nudity allowed.

“By choosing to participate you are still responsible for your actions,” organizers of the event wrote. “Overall, don’t make this event like [Santa Con], be excellent to each other.”

Santa Con, an annual pub crawl that encourages people to dress up as Santa Claus, was founded in San Francisco in 1994 and has since expanded to other cities.

Organizers of the event said that if people on Sunday were asked why they’re pantsless they should respond, “I forgot to wear pants,” NBC Bay Area reported.

Other cities across the country also participated in the “No Pants Subway Ride,” including Washington D.C., New York, Boston, and Chicago.

BART director Janice Li told SF Gate that she didn’t know about the event, but that she was pleased more people were riding BART.

“This is weird Bay Area at its finest and I hope the Bay Area stays weird,” Li said.

This story was originally published January 13, 2020 at 10:12 AM with the headline "No pants? No problem. Pantsless passengers take over BART for chilly SF commute."