Nobody likes traffic. Most times, however, we think about the lost productivity and stress that comes from being stuck in endless gridlock, but what we don’t talk about are the lost romantic possibilities that are squandered because of being planted behind the steering wheel.

Car commuting is lonely, expensive and polluting, but if people knew it was hurting their love life, they might jump ship even sooner, and start riding the bus or the train to work, possibly even biking.

When we take public transportation, we get to be around other people and some of those people are pretty good looking. After all, we do want to look our best when we head into the office. This fact has not been lost on a new wave of entrepreneurs and programmers who put their heads together to come up with apps and social media tools that help commuters get information to make their ride better, and connect with their fellow travelers.

We’ve compiled a very short list of some of the social media and transit apps that can help you get a date.

Submate

Could someone interesting or potentially dateable be on the same train as you and you don’t know it? Maybe you do. Submate wants to make sure you never miss another opportunity to build your community with your fellow riders, and if you happen to want to date one, they wouldn’t mind that either.

The Submate teams thinks that because so much of our time is spent commuting, it’s a shame when it doesn’t result in something meaningful, such as real connection with fellow passengers. Even if it’s not a date, they hope that you will learn about fun events, cool places and new things to do from your Submates in common.

Bumped.in

While thousands of people may pass your line of sight on a single commute, there are very few who catch your eye. And far too often its impossible to marshall the requisite guts needed to strike up a conversation, so there’s a smartphone app that does the intro for you.

By entering your approximate travel times, your route and destination, Bumped will tell you how many other users are traveling at the same time in the same direction. If you and some young lovely are both using Bumped, you can send each other a message, depending on the privacy settings. Or, ya know, you might also meet that next high paying client.

Weeels

Dubbed as ‘Social Transit,’ Weeels is a New York-based startup we’ve mentioned before, with a free iPhone app that allows people to hail a taxi with the push of a button. If a passenger is willing to broadcast his or her location and share a ride with a stranger, this can be arranged with another Weeels subscriber, provided she or he has filled out a profile and uploaded pictures to the site.

So how can this help you get a date? Just imagine that you punch in your coordinates and some beautiful stranger joins you in the back seat. Sparks fly, and before you know it, you’re on the ride of destiny. It could happen, right? Well, if it hasn’t happened yet, it might. SocialCarNews thinks so too. Their article was called ‘Weeels App Arranges Backseat Hookups Between Total Strangers.’

Bike Pool

The idea for Bike Pool was one of the four finalists in a competition put on by Yoxi to design a better public awareness campaign to promote bicycling in cities.

Bike Pool adopted a tongue-in-cheek approach, with their actors saying that who you chose to ride with is one of the most important decisions of your life. “You don’t want to just leave it up to chance.” To make sure you get the best riding partner, Bike Pool proposes to screen applicants based on 29 key variables and make sure you find the ride of your life.

Bike Pool from Yoxi_team2 on Vimeo.

Fitness Singles

While some people like to go to the grocery store to pickup a potential mate, there are plenty who would rather go to the gym and find their object of desire grunting, sweaty and dressed in workout clothes. For people who would like to date someone who shares their passion for healthy living, there’s Fitness Singles, ‘where relationships workout.’

Fitness Singles is not explicitly a transportation app, but whenever I see an ad for this site, there is always a picture of a girl riding a bicycle. I’m a guy and easy to please.