Jared and Mary Conley pose on an N Judah train after getting engaged in 2013. (Photo courtesy of Mary Conley)
It was Halloween 2012. In addition to the usual holiday excitement, baseball fans were celebrating the San Francisco Giants’ World Series win at the team’s victory parade. And in the midst of all that merriment, at least one relationship began on Muni.
Mary Rickles Conley and Jared Conley met on a crowded N Judah train after the parade that day. They tell their story in “Love Is in the Air and on Muni,” a special Valentine’s Day episode of our Taken with Transportation podcast.
One Muni ride leads to more than a dozen years of love…and counting
“A couple hundred people got on the train, and we went from standing near each other to practically hugging,” Rickles Conley says in the episode. “When you’re that close to someone on a train that is that hot and that crowded, you have to talk to one another [because] it’s just so awkward.”
The couple hit it off and began dating. They got engaged a year later and married in 2014. They would go on to name their son after the Muni line that brought them together. His first name is Jackson, and one of his middle names is Judah.
Damara Arsanis with Oliver Gajda, her partner and our acting chief safety officer.
Strangers on a bus become partners in life
SFMTA Acting Chief Safety Officer Oliver Gajda first encountered his partner Damara Arsanis on Muni. “I used to ride the 21 Hayes,” Gajda says. “And I’d see this beautiful woman get on the bus with her child.”
That was in 2017, but the pair didn’t speak until they connected on a dating app in 2022. Arsanis recognized Gajda from the bus, and that helped break the ice. “I see this gentleman that liked me [on the app],” she explains. “And I’m like, ‘This is the guy that used to ride the 21. It’s gotta be him.’”
The pair began chatting, and that led to a coffee date. “It ended up being an 11-hour date, and the rest is kind of history,” Arsanis says.
How to listen
You can find “Love Is in the Air and on Muni” and all the Taken with Transportation episodes on our podcast webpage (SFMTA.com/Podcast), our YouTube channel, Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen.