his work, passions, goals, and mission will continue to impact me…

I didn't know Courtney personally. We never met in person. Our connection was through Twitter when one day we both decided to follow each other on Twitter. I think we both followed each other on Twitter after exchanging likes on a tweet about transportation.

For a long time, I just knew Courtney as the person who tweeted all the time non-stop about transit and transportation. That really struck a chord with me as a student in San Francisco studying politics and transportation issues.

I'm personally a very big Twitter user. I use it a lot to keep myself informed and up to date on all the latest things. Courtney's tweets always brought some joy when it came up in my feed. His tweets were never negative, they were always positive and if the tweets complained about something, the tweet would focus not on the complaint, but rather the improvements that could come about.

Beyond his tweets making my day, his tweets about transportation and its issues from equity to pricing meant a lot to me. I currently work for the SFMTA/Muni on a policy development and analysis team that focuses on autonomous vehicles. Courtney's tweets about equity issues, accessibility issues, and other transportation issues kept me grounded in the work I did to ensure the streets of San Francisco were safe and that everyone, regardless of background, could access transportation that would be reliable. Something Courtney cared about deeply.

Despite the fact that we were never able to meet in person, but were in the same communities and sharing tweets about transportation is a testament to the impact that Courtney had in the lives of many including mine. Although Courtney was not family, a close friend, or a coworker, Courtney to me is and will forever be a transit advocate who's ideas always kept me moving forward and reminded me what is at stake when it comes to the future of transportation.

It is truly sad that he is gone, but his work, passions, goals, and mission will continue to impact me as I hope to be a part of the vision he had for the world.

— Ethan Tan