September 04, 20XX
Dear ___________,
I am a constituent who lives in your city/ district at ___________________. I'm writing to you today to encourage you to look into ways of increasing the scope of public transportation in our region.
Great public transit is vital to maintaining and increasing a city’s economic growth. Due to the increasing growth and sprawl of North Texas, especially in Tarrant County, cities that do not commit to increased investment in public transit are resigning themselves to ever greater traffic congestion – congestion that constrains the region’s ability to then grow economically. While a lack of good public transit infrastructure does large economic harm to cities, an investment in such infrastructure directly benefits the city and the surrounding region. Take, for instance, the fact that for every $1 invested in public transit, communities see a return of $4. Meanwhile, traffic congestion costs cities billions of dollars every year. Individuals in Texas cities lose roughly $1,600 per year while they are stuck sitting in traffic. Multiply this out through a city and the costs are staggering: the largest Texas cities lose between $2.8 and $4.9 billion annually. And, in the United States overall, congestion costs added up to $305 billion in 2017, a $10 billion dollar increase from 2016. The Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro area was the fastest-growing region in 2017 and shows little signs of slowing down. While great in many respects, this expansion will no doubt greatly increase traffic congestion. Without an appropriate complementary increase in transit investment in Tarrant County, we are on track to lose much more money than we might imagine.
Sincerely,
YOUR NAME