Alejandra Agredo, voice for Miami-Dade transit with influential audience, dies at 17

[Celerity]

so utterly tragic, suicide by train


https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/obituaries/article237935779.html

Alejandra Agredo, whose command of transit policy and wry takes on its failings and potential in Miami-Dade County earned the attention of government and nonprofit leaders, died Nov. 26, her father said Monday. She was 17. A well-known voice among Miami-Dade policy makers and advocacy groups involved in transit, Agredo used her Twitter feed to demand better from the county’s transportation system and showed up at city halls and county meetings to press her case in person.

In October, she launched a new nonprofit, the Miami Riders Alliance, with a stated mission to unite Miami’s bus, train and bike riders in a fight “for safe streets and reliable transit.” For fun, Agredo would take round trips on county buses and Metrorail trains to absorb more details about how Miami-Dade moved people. “She would ride transit to ride transit,” said Kevin Amézaga, also 17 and a fellow founder of the Riders Alliance. “She just liked seeing how the system worked.”

Among Agredo’s side projects were a redesigned county transit pass with a mini rail map she created, and developing open-source software to track all of South Florida’s transit options, including city trolleys , Tri-Rail and Brightline. The early phases of that effort are available at wayline.co, a website she developed. “Wayline will reinvent South Florida commutes,” the site states. “Get out of your car.” “She didn’t want people to be left out of life because they didn’t have access to transit,” Amézaga said. “She really liked the idea of connecting everybody in Miami, because we’re all the same.”

News of Agredo’s death became public Saturday, prompting a string of praise and remembrances from county office holders, community activists and everyday transit riders who became fans of Agredo’s @VirginTrainsMIA Twitter account.

snip


her last Tweet

Link to tweet

[FM123]

1. Oh no. Breaks my heart.

"She didn’t want people to be left out of life because they didn’t have access to transit.” What a beautiful and kind soul she had.

[Yakkuza]

2. Thank you for this post

It breaks my heart to find this post so late. Alejandra was a special person who started fighting at 15 for better transit in the city of Miami and to make the living of all of us in the county more affordable and more human. She was my baby. Please visit the links if you want to learn a little bit more about what she did in her short life span.

Link to tweet

[gopiscrap]

3. welcome to DU