2026 Transit for All Organizing Spring Training

Image description: Black text highlighted in yellow reads “Transit for All Organizing Spring Training 2026”, interspersed with blue-filtered images of transit advocates at rallies, holding signs, and boarding the bus. Smaller text below reads “March 20-21, 2026, Pittsburgh, PA”, with the Pittsburghers for Public Transit and Transit for All PA logos.

You’re invited: Join transit riders, workers, and supporters from across PA and the country for the 2026 Transit for All Organizing Spring Training!

Transit can transform our communities – but it is up to us as organizers to build the grassroots movement to make it happen!

This March, you are invited to join Pittsburghers for Public Transit, Transit for All PA!, and advocates from across the country at the third annual Transit for All Organizing Spring Training.

It’s going to be bigger and better than ever before. This organizing training day will have workshops led by local advocates and advocates outside of Pittsburgh, and will have topics relevant to transit organizers at all levels and all regions.

Join peers and leaders from Pennsylvania and across the country for a Transit Tour through Pittsburgh, a Happy Hour, and a full day jam-packed with an inspiring plenary, engaging workshops, field visits, and lots of community building with comrades from near and far. Learn more about our workshops below!

For transit riders, workers, and advocates, there’s no other event like this. Space is limited and pre-registration is required for all events, so reserve your spot now!

Pre-registration is required for all events. The last day to register for Spring Training is Friday, March 13th, 2026.

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Table of Contents

• Schedule at a Glance
• Tickets are sold out
• Logistics
  • Location Information
  • Discounted Room Block for Overnight Stays
  • Accessibility
  • Food & Drink
  • Covid-19 Procedures
  • More information
• Workshop and Event Descriptions
• About Our Presenters

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Tickets are sold out

Tickets are sold out. The last day to register was Spring Training is Friday, March 13th, 2026.

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Logistics

Location Information

The Courtyard Pittsburgh University Center is located at 100 Lytton Ave, Pittsburgh PA 15213, in the amenity-rich Oakland neighborhood.

The hotel is very easily accessible from the airport via public transit. It is about a four-minute walk or roll from the Fifth Ave and Tennyson Ave PRT stop, which is serviced by the following routes:

• 54 Northside-Oakland-Southside
• 58 Greenfield
• 61A North Braddock
• 61B Braddock-Swissvale
• 61C McKeesport-Homestead
• 61D Murray
• 67 Monroeville
• 69 Trafford
• 71A Negley
• 71B Highland Park
• 71C Point Breeze
• 71D Hamilton
• 75 Ellsworth
• 81 Oak Hill
• 83 Bedford Hill
• 93 Lawrenceville-Hazelwood
• P3 East Busway-Oakland

Discounted Room Block for Overnight Stays

We have secured a discounted hotel room block at the venue, so that those joining from outside Pittsburgh can stay overnight.

Discounted rooms are available for $189 per night, only for those who book before Friday, February 27, 2026.

If you’d like to reserve a hotel room in our block, please use this link.

Accessibility

The Courtyard Pittsburgh University Center has accessible onsite parking and an accessible main entrance. All meeting areas are accessible, and there are elevators throughout the building. More information about the hotel’s accessibility features can be found on their web page.

ASL interpretation will be provided at all events.

Food and Drink

At happy hour on Friday, let PPT buy your first round! Drink tickets will be provided to all those who pre-register. Snacks will be available from 5:15-5:45, first-come-first-serve.

On Saturday, PPT will provide a continental breakfast for participants in the morning, lunch, and mid-day snacks—as well as coffee and tea, all day.

PPT will label provided food with common allergens.

COVID-19 Procedures

Masks are encouraged indoors at our events and will be available on-site at check-in. We also encourage everyone to take an at-home COVID-19 rapid test before arriving. Please stay home if you are feeling sick or have come into contact with someone who has COVID-19.

More Information

If you have any questions, please email info@pittsburghforpublictransit.org, and a member of the team will get back to you!

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Workshops and Events

Friday, March 20

3:30 PM: Transit Tour

Starting point: 4836 Ellsworth Ave, Pittsburgh PA, 15213

Come on a transit tour of Pittsburgh, tailored to you! Local transit advocates and members will lead this tour, beginning at the Pittsburghers for Public Transit office, and ending near our final destination: our attendee Happy Hour in the Strip District. Guides will lead us through local landmarks, service issues, our geography’s impact on the transit system, and new visions for the system’s potential.

5:00-7:00 PM: Happy Hour

Aslin Beer Company, 1801 Smallman St. 

You’re invited to mingle with the crew before the big day of workshops! Join up for chit-chat, cocktails, snacks, and activities in Pittsburgh’s historic Strip District. We will be welcomed to the weekend by special remarks from Allegheny County Executive and transit champion Sara Innamorato!

Food will be served between 5:15 and 5:45 PM, first-come, first-served. Pre-registration is required, and comes with one drink ticket! RSVP at the form above.

Saturday, March 21

Courtyard Pittsburgh University Center
100 Lytton Ave., Pittsburgh PA, 15213

Opening Plenary

9:00-9:45 AM
Presenters:
Veronica Coptis, Senior Advisor, Taproot Earth
Andrew Slack, PA-based narrative strategist, facilitator, and storyteller
T4APA! Organizing Fellows Kearasten Jordan (Lancaster) and Laura Pauls-Thomas (Lancaster)

Narrative Change: Our Stories Build the World We Want

Block 1 (10:00-11:30 AM)
Presenters:
Nadia Awad, Content Director, Narrative Initiative
Andrew Slack, author, comedian, facilitator, and advocate
Clair Hopper, Digital Organizer, Pittsburghers for Public Transit and Transit for All PA!

Our stories are like stars spread across the night sky: bright, but too numerous to make sense of each one. When our stories share values and themes, we start to create constellations of shared narratives. These narratives have the power to drive public opinion shifts and real policy improvements. Join this workshop to learn how our movement can use Narrative Change Theory to transform our stories into victories.

#VoteTransit: Bus Mayor Elections and Beyond

Block 1 (10:00-11:30 AM)
Presenters: 
Betsy Plum, Executive Director of Riders Alliance (New York City) 
Barb Warwick, Pittsburgh City Council member, District 5

In New York City, Seattle, Boston and here in Pittsburgh, City leaders have shown that faster, more affordable public transit is a winning electoral issue. In this workshop, Riders Alliance Executive Director Betsy Plum will share how transit riders supported now-NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani to center transit justice in his campaign and how that helped propel him to a historic victory. Betsy Plum and Pittsburgh Councilwoman Barb Warwick will also lay out both the challenges and opportunities for transit riders to collaborate with—and hold accountable—municipal elected officials to make our transit dreams a reality.

Art-making Activity: Craft a Beautiful Rally Sign!

Lunchtime (11:45 AM-12:50 PM)

Facilitated by Arts Excursions Unlimited, exercise your creative mind and use your hands to create a sign for your next transit rally—one that inspires, moves, and (of course) looks great!

Movement Moment: Grounding, Accessible Yoga Practice

Lunchtime (11:45 AM-12:50 PM)

Facilitated by yoga instructor, massage therapist, community activist, and PPT member Mona Meszar (she/they), use this short, chair-based practice to ground in your body, and refresh your mind for the day ahead.

Mobile Workshop! Field Communications: Storytelling from the Street

Block 2 (1:00-2:30 PM)
Presenters: 
Joe Conniff, Video Editor, Educator, and Producer
Remote support from Marcelese Cooper, Teaching Assistant Professor in the Film and Media Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh

Our stories are our power, and organizing with stories can help the movement win big. Join this workshop to learn how to make in-the-field videos that develop our transit justice narrative and help us build power for this movement. We strongly suggest that participants take the Narrative Change workshop earlier that day, or have prior experience in our volunteer Communications Committee. Pre-registration is required; reserve your spot at the form above!

Bargaining for the Common Good: Worker/Community Solidarity

Block 2 (1:00-2:30 PM)
Presenters: 
Connor Chapman, University of Pittsburgh Graduate Workers Union and Pittsburghers for Public Transit
Ronni Getz, UPMC Magee Women’s Hospital, SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania

Learn how unions and community organizations can join together to win demands far beyond traditional union labor contracts, advancing the public good! Explore case studies from the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers and SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania, unions whose members not only challenged the boss, but took on inequitable systems within their professions. Participants will learn strategies for developing demands that benefit workers and the wider community—as well as ideas for using these principles to boost labor’s demands before the next contract fight.

Organizing with Disability Justice at the Center

Block 2 (1:00-2:30 PM)
Presenters:
Anna Zivarts, a leading author, transit rider organizer and founder of the Nondriver Alliance out of Washington state
Dr. Josie Badger, director of the national RSA-Parent Training, Information, technical assistance center (RAISE), and founder of several orgs including the Pennsylvania Youth Leadership Network (PYLN), the Children’s Hospital Advocacy Network for Guidance and Empowerment (CHANGE), and J.Badger Consulting
Moderator:
Alisa Grishman, founder of Access Mob Pittsburgh and PPT Board member

Disability justice is a core part of transit justice. In this workshop, organizers Anna Zivarts from Washington State and Dr. Josie Badger from New Castle, Pennsylvania will share practical ways to organize for better transit in both rural and urban communities—led by disabled riders themselves. They will discuss how to build strong coalitions and support disabled transit riders to move into leadership and decision-making roles, putting the principle “nothing about us, without us” into action.

Big Tech in Transit: Automation, Microtransit, Surveillance, and Data

Block 3 (2:45-4:15 PM)
Presenters:
Dr. Sarah Fox, Assistant Professor in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University; Director, Tech Solidarity Lab
Sue Scanlon, Transit Operator, Pittsburgh Regional Transit; Pittsburghers for Public Transit board member
Ziggy Edwards, Leader, Mon-Oakland Connector Campaign

Across the United States, AI and private tech firms are playing an increasing role in our transportation systems- with serious consequences for transit workers and riders. In this workshop, CMU Professor Dr. Sarah Fox will share insights from her work alongside unionized transit workers to identify emerging tech challenges to transit jobs, and share strategies to ensure these technologies support worker rights, safety, and autonomy. A Pittsburgh transit worker and rider will also highlight lessons learned from the successful campaign – entitled “Our Money, Our Solutions” against the autonomous vehicle microtransit project “The Mon-Oakland Connector.”

Transit Isn’t Just Urban: Organizing in Small Systems & Everywhere

Block 3 (2:45-4:15 PM)
Presenters: 
Connor Descheemaker (they/them), Statewide Campaign Manager, Transit for All PA
T4APA! Organizing Fellows Angela Adler and Laura Pauls-Thomas (Lancaster), Benjamin Felker-Quinn and Andria Ahrens (Lehigh Valley)

We always say transit exists in all 67 counties across Pennsylvania, but what does that really mean, and who does it represent? Data shows us that there are just as high a percentage of non-drivers in our most rural communities as our most urban, and those in power need to serve those riders with reliable, accessible service for work, healthcare and communities. Right now, Transit For All PA is base-building in small cities to identify what service looks like, and what it should look like. Learn from six local organizers about what transit is like in their communities, and how they are reaching workers and peers to identify how to make it better.

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About Our Presenters

Sara Innamorato was sworn in as the first woman to serve as the Allegheny County Executive on January 2, 2024.  The Innamorato Administration’s guiding principle is to build a strong Allegheny County for All – one that serves all 1.3 million residents – built on a foundation of dignity and respect.

Sara has been a champion for transit riders locally, appointing a Pittsburghers for Public Transit member to the Pittsburgh Regional Transit Board of Directors, directing her Department of Human Services to start a half-fare transit program, and leading efforts to expand transit funding from the state.

Arts Excursions Unlimited is dedicated to increasing the cultural connectivity of the citizens of the greater Hazelwood community. They have collaborated closely with Pittsburghers for Public Transit to create art that transforms people’s understanding of transit justice & energizes a movement fighting for all peoples’ needs.

Mona Meszar is a Pittsburgh based massage therapist & yoga instructor whose work seeks to center TLGBQIA communities, as well as those involved in anti-repression and anti-fascist organizing. Regardless of who you are or what you are facing, choosing stillness and rest is an active choice. It gives us the agency we require to reclaim our space and time from the banality of capitalism, white supremacy, and militarism. She seeks to help others find the strength, resilience, compassion, and persistence to heal from that trauma.

Veronica Coptis is a rural organizer in Appalachia from Greene County, Pennsylvania. For the last nine years, her most important role has been raising two spirited children and instilling in them strong values to fight for everyone’s freedom. For over 15 years, she has been organizing around the intersection of environmental/climate justice and economic justice. Veronica is currently the Senior Advisor with Taproot Earth, a frontline-rooted organization based in the Gulf South that works in Appalachia and amplifies solutions from the global Black diaspora. Taproot Earth invests in frontline communities, facilitates processes that build power and cultivates climate solutions advancing justice, democracy, climate reparations and community stewardship so we can all live, rest, and thrive in the places we love. In her early organizing Veronica worked with the Center for Coalfield Justice and the Mountain Watershed Association. She also owns Redneck Strategies LLC, which provides strategic guidance, facilitation, and training services. Additionally, she is the treasurer of the Rural People Rising Political Action Committee, creating independent political infrastructure to support everyday people taking the bold step to govern our communities.

​​Andrew Slack is a narrative strategist, facilitator, and storyteller from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he lives with his wife and son. His family roots run through Altoona, in the heart of rural PA, and Pittsburgh holds a special place in his story as Mr. Rogers Neighborhood helped shape his entire worldview and inspired him to co-author Save Santa’s Home, a children’s book that playfully inspires young people to advocate for climate action. Growing up with a beloved grandmother who lived with a significant disability from polio deepened his understanding of how access and dignity are inseparable.

Andrew came up through sketch comedy and theater, performing across the country and producing some of the earliest viral videos on YouTube. Twenty-five years ago, he cut his teeth in activism at a spiritual center for peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland, helping people who had been traumatized tell their stories. He went on to co-found the Harry Potter Alliance, spending a decade inspiring over a million fans to become first-time activists through the power of shared stories. His work connecting popular culture to social change, from The Hunger Games to economic inequality, Superman to immigrant rights, has spanned over 30 countries and earned him fellowships at Ashoka and the Nathan Cummings Foundation.

Andrew’s writing and speaking have been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, CNN, and the Hollywood Reporter, where he recently co-authored a piece on Superman as an immigrant with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas. He has spoken at TEDx, SXSW, Harvard, Yale, the Illinois Holocaust Museum, and over 100 other venues, and recently appeared on Doug Rushkoff’s acclaimed podcast Team Human. As an international activist, satirist, and narrative strategist, he has organized A-list celebrities and Indigenous leaders across the Global South; co-launched a satirical organization against oligarchy; and has advised the Ford Foundation, Atlantic Philanthropies, Netflix, the Teamsters, and the nation’s top immigration lawyers. His social impact campaigns have reached over 100 million views, and a curriculum he created around an Oscar-qualifying Indigenous animated short was distributed to over 20,000 educators. He now runs Imagine Better Stories LLC, working to elevate the stories we tell about ourselves and our world.

Nadia Awad is an interdisciplinary artist and writer, whose work focuses on narrative and justice. For over fifteen years, she has produced media on the lives of LGBT, HIV-affected, and MENA communities. She contributed 20 oral histories, many with Muslim and Arabic-speaking narrators, for the New York Trans Oral History Project, and created photographs and videos on trans athletes, HIV criminalization, and healthcare access for Lambda Legal. Nadia has written about film, memory, and power for The New Inquiry, The Journal of Palestine Studies, and Camera Obscura. Two forthcoming scholarly works, Terrorism in American Memory and a study on Middle Eastern asylum seekers, will feature her art. Nadia received a B.A. from York University. She lives in New York with her partner, and an ever-expanding collection of succulents.

Clair Hopper is a disabled human person who makes a happy living designing data systems and communications for a very cool organization. She comes to Transit Justice work via Climate Justice work, having lived through many climate-change-induced megastorms in her adoptive hometown of Houston, Texas. She spends her free time touching grass at the beautiful Garfield Community Farm, and sewing.

Betsy Plum is the Executive Director of Riders Alliance, New York’s grassroots organization of subway and bus riders fighting for reliable, affordable, world-class public transit. A strategic organizer and policy expert, Betsy has led the charge to win and defend transformative victories for riders—including the historic implementation of North America’s first congestion pricing program, alongside sustained organizing to elevate buses as a core component of the city’s transit and political agenda. Under her leadership, Riders Alliance has mobilized thousands of New Yorkers, shaped major state and city decisions, and built lasting political power for the millions who rely on public transit every day.

Barb Warwick is the Pittsburgh City Council member for District 5. She first became engaged in City politics through her neighborhood’s fight against the Mon Oakland Connector, a proposed road for private autonomous shuttles that would have run through a public park. Working closely with Pittsburghers for Public Transit as well as community and transit advocates across the city, the MOC was defeated. Barb then ran for City Council, where she quickly passed legislation to both protect City parks from private development and reallocate MOC funding to long-needed community projects, including traffic calming, new sidewalks, and renovating a local rec center. Barb continues to be a strong supporter of public transit in Pittsburgh, including funding bus shelters across the city and free transit passes for city employees.

Joe’s entertainment industry experience spans across motion pictures, commercials, theater, indie web series, and other mediums. He has done locations work for Lionsgate, The Walt Disney Company, and Revolver Entertainment, and taught media arts and filmmaking to schoolchildren in Los Angeles.  

Marcelese Cooper is an artist and educator originally from Santa Clarita, California, and has practiced throughout the Midwest and the South for nearly a decade. Influenced by their experiences as a young, black, queer individual, Cooper explores themes of identity, community, and the black/brown narrative through mediums like animation, performance art, and experimental video. They blend the DNA of dreams, science-fiction, and surreal art-house cinema in their work.

Connor Chapman is a labor/community organizer based in Pittsburgh, PA. Committed to building strong labor-community coalitions, he believes that robust connections between unions and community groups are key to preserving and expanding access to public goods. With the PPT Organizing Committee, Connor helped develop trainings for PPT members that draw on tried and true tactics from the labor movement. As a doctoral candidate in sociology, he also organized with the Pitt Graduate Workers Organizing Committee (United Steelworkers), where he helped secure union representation for 2,300 graduate workers at the University of Pittsburgh.

Anna Zivarts is a visually impaired parent and author of When Driving Is Not an Option: Steering Away from Car Dependency (Island Press). Zivarts is a leader in the nondriver movement, organizing disabled transit riders in Washington State through the Nondriver Alliance and supporting the growth of the Week Without Driving, which she launched in 2021.

Dr. Josie Badger received her Bachelor’s degree from Geneva College in Disability-Law-and-Advocacy, a Master’s from the University of Pittsburgh in Rehabilitation Counseling, and a Doctorate from Duquesne University in Healthcare Ethics. In 2012, Dr. Badger was crowned Ms. Wheelchair America. In 2014 Josie founded J Badger Consulting Inc. where she provides youth development and disability consulting services. She is the National-Transition-Director for SPAN Parent-Advocacy-Network, working with RAISE and the National Healthcare-Transition Center for Youth with ID/DD. She is the Campaign Manager of the United Way of Southwestern PA’s #IWantToWork Campaign, to improve the employment of people with disabilities, is the lead Field Organizer for the Family Care Act that supports paid family leave, and is the developer of SAIL, a statewide advocacy and lobbying training program. Josie recently founded PEACOCK, a nonprofit that will further support the needs of the disability community and our underserved populations.

Alisa Grishman is a disability activist and founder of Access Mob Pittsburgh, an advocacy group that utilizes positive approaches to making change, such as education and economic incentives. A self-described shameless agitator, Grishman has also been arrested multiple times fighting for disability rights with ADAPT, a national advocacy group. Her work has been recognized locally and nationally in such outlets as the Rachel Maddow Show, NPR, Huffington Post, Esquire Magazine, WTAE, KDKA News, and the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

Along with her direct advocacy work, Grishman co-runs Ballots for Patients and Care to Vote, sister efforts that respectively collect emergency absentee ballots from hospitalized peoples on election day and work with nursing and personal care homes to help residents register to vote and fill out ballots. She also sits on the board of directors of the Keystone Progress Education Fund.

In her free time, Grishman enjoys knitting and collecting antique books. She lives in the Uptown neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA.

Sarah Fox is an Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon University in the Human Computer Interaction Institute, where she directs the Tech Solidarity Lab. Her work examines the impacts of AI and automation on essential work sectors, with a focus on developing systems that center workers’ needs and expertise. 

Ziggy Edwards is a lifelong Pittsburgher who writes and edits for her local paper, along with the literary zine she co-founded. 

Sue Scanlon has been a public transit operator for 25 years with Pittsburgh Regional Transit. She is also a 16 year member of Pittsburghers for Public Transit. She was part of the successful pushback campaign against Pittsburgh’s Mon-Oakland Connector which was a plan for an automated ‘bus’ to transport people from the Hazelwood neighborhood to CMU. 

Connor Descheemaker has over a decade of experience building and facilitating diverse coalitions to change policy, support local communities, and provide professional education and development.  Born in Phoenix, they came of age as the area opened its first light rail line, and the changing city ignited their interest in mobility and community-building. There, they ran multiple all-ages art and performance spaces, and founded a business coalition to support walkable, sustainable, and affordable urban development. After four intermediary years in Seattle supporting architects in their professional development, and housing and transportation advocacy, they arrived in Philadelphia in 2022 to manage the Transit Forward Philadelphia coalition. There, they grew the group to 35 community-based organizations covering environmental justice, immigrant and refugee support, community development, political advocacy, and elder and disability rights. Now, they organize transit riders and workers across Pennsylvania to build rural-urban solidarity for accessible and reliable public transportation in all 67 counties.