Alex Contreras 🍉 @contrerasforca Twitter profile

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Alex Contreras 🍉

4 years

LA Metro plans to widen the 605/5 interchange. If this moves forward it would destroy my parent's home, my old elementary school, & two parks to widen the freeway. Email i605corridor @metro .net or call 213.922.4091 & ask them to go with Alternative 1, the No Project Alternative

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Last Seen Profiles

@gwssalex

@Web3HackerNinja

@Tadokoronookina

@ayo_meechie

@cdcxpe

@itsKenBarbie

@RouenExpo

@abranovi

@cosmxxian

@RMHSstampede

@stlaurencecoll2

@rare_gem_ent

@brainingcongres

@gravitystrikcs

@devancoggan

@_kendimce_7

@dlsusports

@Theropod_art

@nashywil93

@BRBchemistry

@ClimbingMag

@piza_caio

@natsuki_saki

@dfsaracino

@smutoro

@EU_OSHA

@StrillaNyete

@pgroisma

@hiitaro_chan

@1GCFamilyLaw

@PrairieGravel

@petersimeti

@SiteCifras

@D_I_Y_Dale

@Malachai_77

@USG_eSport

Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

I don't ever want to hear from a single "progressive" how we need more cars and no one uses bike infrastructure. The City of LA just outlawed owning bicycles for our homeless neighbors. Bike infrastructure connects everyone regardless of income, you know what doesn't? A freeway.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

19 days

As tax day approaches, I'm reminded most Americans don't like paying taxes because the benefits we see from our taxes are mediocre. Car-dependent infrastructure, urban sprawl, no guaranteed healthcare, little social safety net, Turbo Tax keeping the process complicated...

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

Therapy is not enough, I need to fight Robert Moses.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

3 years

LAPD is already declaring their intent to escalate, attack, and brutalize people in wake of a guilty verdict for Derek Chauvin. The system is working as intended. Abolish the police.

LAPD HQ

@LAPDHQ

3 years

In an abundance of caution the Los Angeles Police Department has called a tactical alert. There are no current unlawful assemblies and the department is proactively taking initiative to ensure adequate resources to respond to any situation should the need arise.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

I absolutely love corner stores in the middle of residential neighborhoods

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

3 years

I would like to bike more but I also don't want to die.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 months

Saw a video today in which a man filmed himself saying people who call themselves expats are just immigrants and migrant workers. I have never seen people more mad in his comments.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

Housing policy is transit policy is climate policy

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

7 months

Therapist said that biking is inherently dangerous after I shared how biking is now becoming a source of anxiety for me - then followed up with she can't treat me. Still reeling from that conversation. Because that is the biggest case of car brain I have ever experienced.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

Housing cannot be a human right if we treat it as a financial investment. It's one or the other.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

I keep hearing a version of "But poor people need cars, we can't take away lanes from cars to put in a bus lane". This line of thought is missing two important things - one, people need cars because our built environment prioritizes and subsidizes car dependent infrastructure.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

This video is hard to watch, but it is important to recognize that due to the design of our streets and the way we build our cities, every person who has influence over city/transportation planning decisions have played a part in allowing this tragedy to happen.

Los Angeles Scanner

@LosAngeles_Scan

2 years

Video of accident at Slauson/La Brea

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

If I die because a driver hits and kills me while I'm biking, I need you all to physically fight the transportation engineers in whatever city I die in.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

Been open what, less than a week? This is exactly why we need protected bike infrastructure on this bridge.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

One of the biggest threats to our future is car dependent infrastructure. It accelerates climate change, maims & kills at an alarming rate, forces people into precarious financial situations and limits the amount of housing we need to build. Car dependency is actively harming us.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

1 year

It's an ugly look, shaming people who live in car dependent sprawl for using cars. I used my car all the time in LA because I didn't have much of a choice & am car free now because I now live in a more bike friendly area. Don't shame people. Meet them where they're at.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

I cannot stress how important it is to talk about transit & housing together. I feel like I'm a broken record player, we can't have sustainable cities with enough housing for generations to come if we're not building up our transit!

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

Why spend money on gas to power my car, when I can spend it on burritos to power my bike instead?

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

3 years

Can we stop calling Downey "the Mexican Beverly Hills"? Not only is it a racist, exclusionary, moniker but half of the city are renters and the wealth gap in this city between households is insane. There's a reason why we're leading in Covid-19 cases in SELA County.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

1 month

Someone who works at Caltrans let me know that the tweet I have pinned has been talked about extensively in the department they work in. "The tweets that killed a freeway expansion.", they said.

ethan !!!

@slimeguyethan

2 months

share a piece of lore about yourself

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

3 years

Whittier Councilmember Jessica Martinez was at the white supremacist coup this past Wednesday @FBI . Every elected official who participated or encouraged this, from a local level to a federal level must be immediately expelled from their body of government.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

1 year

We (the US) should use smaller firetrucks than the ones we currently have.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

You cannot talk about transit without talking about housing. Most cities in America are built around cars, with zoning codes forcing suburban sprawl. We need denser housing so people can have the 15 min transit trip anywhere they want to go.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

1 year

When I first moved to Boston my landlord stole my first, last, and security deposit, then locked me out of my apartment. I was a mess, bawling my eyes out on the T, newly homeless with nowhere to go and a White woman came over asking if she could pray for me.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

The people who are calling this a "company town" do not know what a company town is. This is public housing and this is good.

The Associated Press

@AP

2 years

A new one-bedroom apartment for under $1,400 in the San Francisco Bay Area? With a gym, bike room and play area for kids? The Jefferson Union High School District opened 122 units for teachers and staff to help with housing. Others could be next.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

3 years

You do not get to claim to be a climate change champion if you're actively working on giving more city space to cars.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

1 year

Everyone, whether or not they will be honest with themselves, are three checks and a bad situation from ending up homeless and stressed beyond imagination. The difference between Jordan Neely and I, is that I was seen as someone worth caring for in that moment.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

Respectfully, if you're part of the 34% who answered this poll you do realize we have a housing shortage and one way to stabilize rents is via rent control? Yes, build housing but we all know that's not going to happen quick enough. We need to keep renters in their homes.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

My mom found out that BART goes "under the ocean where the fishes are?!" and now she doesn't want to use it 😭💀. Any wise words someone can share to reassure my mom that its going to be fine?

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

3 years

I would like to live in a world where I don't need a car to live my daily life. Owning a car is expensive, they pollute the very air I breathe, cars take away space from public use & comfort, I do not enjoy being forced to live in a car dependent society.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

Hi new followers 👋🏽 My politics are: Trans women are women. Cars are overall a terrible thing to happen to society. Wear a mask indoors. Support unions. Build more housing. Ableism is institutional as racism. Kill freeway expansions.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

Guess she won't be joining the war on cars anytime soon either....

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

If I have to listen to one more person tell me that"poor people need cars" while ignoring how people who can't afford cars are CURRENTLY USING TRANSIT I might actually flip a table.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

19 days

Not to mention tax dollars funding genocide in Palestine, I'm normally a pro-tax American. Taxes are good and pay for things like parks, libraries, and schools, but this year I'm not very happy about where my some of my taxes are going.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

Ding, dong, the witch is dead.

Los Angeles Times

@latimes

2 years

Breaking: 710 Freeway expansion killed after decades of planning

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

18 days

The amount of money that has been freed up for better projects by canceling a freeway widening is nearly a billion dollars. That's a lot of money!

numble

@numble

19 days

At April 2024 meeting, LA Metro will consider approving spending $743m from cancelled I-710 widening. $210m: Freeway Safety/Interchanges $125m: Transit $188m: Roads/Complete Streets $100m: Active Transportation $80m: Goods Movement $40m: Community Programs

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

When a White man accuses you of stealing your own bike while you're in the process of unlocking it, a couple of things run through your mind. "I have my keys, does he really think I'm stealing?" "Is he being bigoted/racist?" "Why would he accuse me of this?"

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

Two, people who cannot afford cars are already using a neglected, underfunded, underutilized transportation system. The way forward is to create a transportation network that doesn't prioritize car dependency.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

1 year

Making it legal to build housing (that was once legal to build) does not equate to trickle-down economics.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

I was nearly killed while biking home from a friend's house on Grand Ave in front of Renegade Running. I have biked this route many times before but today a White (possibly Latino) man decided to run me out of the road, nearly killing me in the process.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

I turn 28 today - you can bet that I'm going to use the rest of my life to be a problem for some people. Be ungovernable. Build housing, kill freeway expansions, put in bus & bike lanes, be with a lover (or two) who treats you well, drink more water, and be kind to yourself.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

This is what a cyclist looks like

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

I've been thinking a lot on how my rent in Albuquerque was $400 a month and that truly allowed me to relax and not worry about being homeless if I wanted to quit my job and mentally rest. If I quit my job today, I'd be homeless in two months.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

1 year

The amount of people I have known in my life who are unable drive or don't want to, but are forced to navigate entirely car dependent infrastructure was a huge part of my awakening. Because once you see how society is structured around cars, you can't unsee it.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

If you ever advocated against bike & transit infrastructure because "no one uses it" or because "people don't use transit" now is the perfect time for some self reflection and think long and hard about how that same line of thinking was used to justify this ban.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

4 years

This you?

Claudia M. Frometa

@ClaudiaFrometa

4 years

@alexfordowney @leeann_xcx @alexfordowney what I think is appalling and absolutely irresponsible is YOUR lack of information & interest in spreading lies about where We stand on this to promote your campaign. Clearly, it is your lack of experience and knowledge on this project. #lackofduediligence

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

3 years

Hey folks 👋🏼 My name is Alex, I'm a non-binary Mexican American who wants to rebuild our cities to become transit orientated, community centered, and most importantly cities where everyone feels welcomed. I (mostly) tweet about freeways, housing, cars & my hometown of Downey.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

I truly wonder if the CA legislature understands that there will be an influx of political refugees from our own country and we have neither the housing or transportation systems to accommodate those who want to come here.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

3 years

No shade, no seating, narrow sidewalk, just ✨vibes✨

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

9 months

Make biking and owning a cat your whole personality? Bet.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

3 years

Downey there is no line or wait at the Downey Promenade currently. Come vote here! #downey

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

Building single family homes in the era of climate change is immoral.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

Out for an evening bike ride and I cannot stop for chicken tenders because it's a car only drive thru. This is regressive.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

19 days

And I really would love for the government to either cut me a check or let me know how much I owe. It can be simple.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

CA needs to build 2.5 million homes between now and 2030. I'm going to do my best to ensure that housing is built.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

People shouldn't need a car to get somewhere. Placing an extremely high cost burden on people so they can have access to basic necessities like work, school, the grocery store, is unjust. Fight for the humble bus lane. It can serve everyone.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

Drivers are able to speed because our cities are designed around cars. To prevent these things from happening in the future we have to redesign our roads & cities. The leading cause of death for kids was cars until 2020. Then it was guns. But cars are still second.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

1 month

I'd rather ride the bus than ride in a car with you.

Chad

@Klxchad

1 month

@contrerasforca Have fun riding the bus with homeless people through Oakland lol

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

Decided to go to Carmel by the Sea instead of Santa Cruz and got called a beaner. 0/10.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

There is something uniquely awful about driving to the gym. If I cannot bike there, I will not be going.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

7 months

She refused to treat me because according to her, I won't accept responsibility for how I interact with the world around me. This was in response to me saying if I get hurt while biking, it's not my fault - it's a careless driver's fault. Because it is.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 months

But I'm only here temporarily for work! Yeah, that makes you a migrant worker. Lmao people were SO mad.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

I do not wish to sit on a committee, I wish that my local government wasn't pro-car dependency and anti-housing.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

25 days

Men who mock women for enjoying astrology are gross.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

3 years

I want to be able to get to the beach without needing a car please and thank you.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

7 months

Biking is an infrastructure issue. I can bike safely, free from the threat of careless drivers if there is adequate infrastructure. If we were to ban cars tomorrow, I could guarantee that lives would be saved.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

3 years

The house my parents bought in 1990 is now worth 5x what they bought for. Gentrification is not an aesthetic phenomenon. Its due to an artificial housing crisis.

phillip agnew

@iPhilSomething

3 years

tell me your neighborhood is being gentrified, without telling me your neighborhood is being gentrified. paved sidewalks, coffee shops, and code enforcement citations....

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

3 years

Apartments are homes. Which is why we need to stop making it illegal to build them.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

I biked to my friend's house, we biked to get food, I biked to the pharmacy and am biking home. I could never do this in Downey or LA. And that's by policy/design.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

3 years

I do not want to spend my 20s begging political leaders to take our climate crisis seriously and to take lead on investing in transit orientated infrastructure. I would just like to wake up one day and not be fighting for my communities survival. That's all I ask.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

I am tired of the old "People of color are the real NIMBYS" talking points. You cannot say neighborhoods that are fearful of experiencing displacement are the same as neighborhoods that are successfully fighting for land use policies that keep people out.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

Part of rebuilding a city so it is no longer car dependent, is providing more forms of transportation so everyone can move through their city with dignity. Bike infrastructure is not just about bikes, it's also about scooter mobility & other kinds of transportation!

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

1 year

Listen, my landlord complained about my credit score along with my roommates. Collectively, it's not bad, but it's not exactly stellar. Guess what she doesn't complain about? Us paying the rent on time every month. Credit scores are a scam.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

Unless you're a developer, you're not providing housing to society. All a landlord does is own a house that they charge you to live in.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

3 years

If a rapist goes on to rape other people, that's on the rapist. Not on their previous victims. Saying that it's the victim's responsibility to prevent future rapes is victim blaming & removing responsibility from the actions of the rapist.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

Cities that are built on car infrastructure & car infrastructure only are inherently inequitable. Society has moved past the artificial demand for a car.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

3 years

Electric vehicles are like electric cigarettes. The packaging may be new & pretty but the content is still carcinogenic.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

Traffic enforcement should be the job of road engineers, transportation planners & cameras. Removing police from traffic enforcement is a step closer to saving lives from police brutality.

Los Angeles Times

@latimes

2 years

“They would even ask me, ‘Why don’t you [drive]? Is that by choice?’” said Gabriel Ledesma, 48, a Latino cook from East L.A. who said deputies have stopped and searched him several times while he was biking in his neighborhood.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

4 years

Disneyland pays about 5 cents per square foot of land in property taxes while Downey homeowners pay roughly $1 or more per square foot of land in property taxes. Sound fair to you? This is why I support Prop 15, to close corporate tax loopholes

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

What doesn't cease to amaze me is how many problems can be solved by turning parking --> into anything else.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

1 year

One of the most disappointing moments of my career, is meeting long time housing policy analysts who do not understand how parking, transit, or development standards affect housing. This profession needs a wake up call otherwise we will not fix the decades long problems before us

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

I do not like cycling clothes. Every cyclist wearing lycra looks absolutely ridiculous. I hate myself for even putting on a pair of shorts.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

19 days

My biggest wish on tax day, is that the government tells me how much I owe or they send me a check. This is an anti - turbo tax account.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

1 year

Ending freeway expansions is not a NIMBY movement. It's a pro-people, pro-housing, pro-transit movement. I'm in the business of connecting community, not tearing it apart.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

Hi new followers 👋🏼 I'm a housing policy analyst and I fight freeway expansions in CA -in short I'm a Mexican American with an internet connection & too stubborn to quit. I use Twitter to organize online, advocate, talk about housing/ transit, & social constructions around race.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

Putting in bus lanes, expanding bus networks, building protected bike lanes is creating more options and most importantly access to places that were previously unreachable if you didn't own a car or have access to one.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

3 years

If you're passionate about solving climate change, one of the best things you can do today is minimize or stop your driving completely. Walk! Take the bus! Ride your bike! Don't drive.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

10 months

I've secured the bag. Succesfully killed a freeway expansion. I'm starting a new coalition to end all freeway expansions in CA. Life is good.

Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

10 months

I'm in my Doña era. I have a cat I love. I take my morning walks. I write my papers. Eat lunch with friends. Ride bikes in the afternoon. Flirty and not entirely settled. Thriving.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

They're a Democrat but they support freeway expansions

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

Starting towards the end of November I'll be joining the California HCD as a Housing Community Representative. I look forward to enforcing housing laws & serving the great nation state of California.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

3 years

I just learned my Aunt & Uncle paid $65,000 for their house in Pasadena in 1977 😭

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

California does not have enough housing to house everyone who lives here, let alone people who will want to move here. We need to stop entertaining vacancy truther myths and stamp out misinformation.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

24 days

The people who are QTing this are mostly men mocking women for enjoying astrology. Once again, mocking women for enjoying things is an entry point to misogyny and gross. If you're a man and your first reaction is to mock women as a whole for enjoying astrology, that's a problem.

Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

25 days

Men who mock women for enjoying astrology are gross.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

1 month

Do people not understand that when housing prices go down and keep going down, investment in housing as a wealth building tool doesn't work???

keewa 🇵🇸

@keewa

1 month

"the problem is not landlords, it's that we need to build more houses" Ok and what happens when the landlords use their existing properties as collateral to get really cheap mortgages to buy those houses to let out

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

I KNOW YOU ADMIRE HER, BUT JANE JACOBS WROTE A WHOLE BOOK WITHOUT A CRITICAL ANALYSIS ON HOW RACE OR CLASS AFFECTED PLANNING DECISIONS AT THE TIME. AND LATER BECAME A NIMBY. WE DON'T BLINDLY SUPPORT JANE JACOBS IN THIS JOINT. SHES FLAWED LIKE THE REST OF US.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

3 years

Having abundant housing in cities is so crucial to having a healthy society. Stuck in an unhappy relationship? You'll be able to pick up and leave more easily. Have abusive parents? You'll be able to live on your own & care for you. Housing saves lives & allows people to grow.

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

4 months

"Is this guy hot or is he just on a bike?" Asked my very homosexual urbanist friend

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Alex Contreras 🍉

@contrerasforca

2 years

It is every person's right to travel safely without fear or threat of harm. I have every right to feel safe while I bike. It is the responsibility of every state, regional, & local dept. of transportation to ensure that ALL people not only feel safe but are safe while they travel

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