Joel Batterman began working as a consultant with LNS in the fall of 2021, assisting with outreach for Transit Equity Day and conducting consultations with Transit Equity Day participants to help guide the future of the event.
A Michigan native, Joel has a background in urban planning, public policy, and community organizing. He helped found the Motor City Freedom Riders, a bus rider union in Detroit, and his writing has been published in Progressive Planning, In These Times, and the Detroit Free Press.
The grandson of a union coal miner, Joel believes that to win a Green New Deal in transportation, we need strong labor-community alliances between transit riders and workers. In pursuit of that goal, he has been working with rider groups around the country to organize Transit Riders of the United States Together (TRUST), a national network of rider unions sponsored by LNS. He currently lives in Santa Rosa, California with his wife and one-year-old son.