On Social Equity

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.

A good public transit system is integral to providing and maintaining social equity in cities. In Arlington, a city of roughly 400,000 people, 10 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. Many are unable to afford cars for even one member of the household, much less two – an exceptionally dire situation given that Arlington has no public bus service. Arlington is not alone in Tarrant County, however, in not providing a good transit system. While it is true that Fort Worth does have a public transit system, it is also true that this system has lagged behind population growth and city-wide demographic and economic changes. The current system is not able to efficiently transport as many people to as many jobs and opportunities as it should. This has led to an economic and transportation structure in Tarrant County that favors car-ownership, forgetting that there is a sizeable population in the region that is unable to afford them. The current system in Fort Worth also ignores, whether in part or whole, geographic areas with large numbers of jobs and, in the areas it does cover, often does not run frequently enough to benefit current riders or to encourage new riders. This all has the effect of further marginalizing lower-income communities, leaving them behind while the city grows.

Sincerely,

YOUR NAME