Reviewing the Play: Transportation Wins During Pittsburgh’s Draft Week
Ngani Ndimbie | September 2026
Mobilify sat down with Chuck Rompala to discuss the roaring success of Pittsburgh’s Draft Week. Rompala, PRT’s former Director of Special Services, Events, and Detours, has since retired from a storied 30+ year career with the agency, having begun his employment as a bus operator.
Our conversation with Chuck illuminated the careful planning that went into Pittsburgh’s Draft Week. Organizers were focused on delivering a fun, accessible event. But ultimately, here in the City of Champions, public transportation became a highlight in and of itself. It was the how that became the wow.
Through our conversation with Chuck, we mined the mind of the master, so we’ll be breaking it down play by play in this blog post and at our discussion event on September 30, 2026.
Inside the Playbook:
Have a Vision
Make it Regional
Say it Loudly
Have A Vision
Organizers were focused on showcasing the city of Pittsburgh to tens of thousands of visitors – showing its evolution from a smoke-filled industrial town to modern city. And, for the first time, there was an added twist: the NFL Draft in Pittsburgh would be held in two main venues – Point State Park and Pittsburgh’s North Shore. These two locations are separated by one of Pittsburgh’s iconic rivers. In order to make the event a success, the organizing committee needed to ensure thousands of visitors had seamless travel to the event footprint and between the two sites. Obviously, transit would be at the center of the plan.
Led by Visit Pittsburgh, the NFL, and other regional organizers, aligning on the vision of a massive, joyful, family-friendly event was key to the overall success. Like a referee’s whistle, it set everything in motion. Based on that vision, the development, coordination, and communication of a rich and redundant multimodal transportation network became a central component of the implementation plan.
“No matter why you’re traveling that week,
our goal is to make transit the easiest and most reliable way to get there.”
- PRT CEO Katherine Kellerman in a statement
Make It Regional
Regardless of who is doing the analysis, Southwestern Pennsylvania is undeniably Steelers Country. The demand to show up and support the host team was bound to be strong, and the mobility plan had to be regional. Source: NFL fan map, The Atlantic, VividSeats
So where is our hero in all of this? Well, once the vision was established, Chuck Rompala got to work making it a reality. A part of that effort involved him liaising between the event team and the other transit agencies in the region.
Chuck got the word out to the agencies in the surrounding counties and had each develop specific plans for service based on their driver and vehicle availability. All transit agencies in the region stepped up and offered clarity on what changes they would be making to their services during the multi-day event. Mobility during the draft was officially a team sport.
The main spines for regional service would be provided by PRT and its Park and Rides. Through an adaptive rebranding of some existing PRT commuter routes, the Football Flyers were born.
All Dressed Up: The G3 became the 99W Football Flyer West, the P67 became the 99E Football Flyer East, the O12 became the 99N Football Flyer North, and the Y1 became the 99S Football Flyer South
Following the development of this backbone, transit agencies in the region spread the word about the availability of the PRT Park and Rides and about the changes to their service. Together the agencies made hundreds of thousands of trips possible and helped to make the mobility of the weekend a grand success.
This level of coordination cooperation is possible, especially when there is a shared vision that is supported within the region.
Say it Loudly
During the lead up to the event weekend, it didn’t matter where you looked, another news outlet was there reminding you to take public transit during Pittsburgh’s Draft week, firmly establishing it as the norm.
As it turns out, when taking public transportation is established as the norm, ample information is provided on how to take transit, and payment is simplified; nearly everyone does it (and has a great time to boot).
VisitPittsburgh’s map showed a multimodal utopia with many options for traveling between the Point State Park and North Shore event locations: walking, light rail (T), bus, and Gateway Clipper.
There was such beautiful, cohesive, overlapping messaging that directed people to take transit, river taxi, walk, or bike to the events – and nearly everyone did.
485,000 PRT riders utilized public transit throughout Draft week, a 51% increase compared to average ridership. 60,000 rides were supported by the Football Flyers, 128,000 rides supported by the T.
11,516 POGOH trips were taken Thursday through Saturday, a 123% more rides than the very next week/
A record 26,500 Gateway Clipper passengers traveled via river transportation with 74 total trips across two-days.
To Learn More
Learn more about what went into pulling off the W for mobility during the big event, join Mobilify for a breakfast discussion event - The Mobility Game Plan: Pittsburgh’s Draft Week on Wednesday, September 30th, 8:00am - 10:30am. Speakers will include Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato; PRT Director of Development, Amy Silbermann; and POGOH Executive Director, David White.
A Thanks to Our Quarterback:
Many thanks to Chuck Rompala for sitting down with us, and for his countless contributions to the region over the past three decades.
During our conversation with Chuck, he casually mentioned that he’d reached out to local leadership in Homestead about the likely increases in pedestrian activity and traffic due to famed locomotive, Big Boy’s, planned visit to the Pittsburgh region. After alerting the municipality, Chuck volunteered both his and his wife’s help and proceeded to spend the day directing people around the event detour – on his day off from PRT. So, although Chuck has retired, you may want to keep an eye out for him and his safety vest at your local large event. Because he very well may be there, doing what he does best: being a team player and helping our region shine.