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Help > 10 Things You Can Do > Sample Letter to Your Mayor
Write a Letter to Your Mayor - Here's
a Sample
Copy the text below into a word-processing
document; fill in your mayor's name, your community's name,
and your name; and print it and put it in the mail. It's easy
and effective!
Dear Mayor [your Mayor's name],
I am writing today to ask you to support fast, frequent passenger
rail service to our community.
Maintaining our national security and our economic strength
depends on the ability to move large numbers of people and
goods both quickly and efficiently. Recent events have given
additional evidence that airports and highways cannot do it
alone.
Nine states have recognized the need for fast, frequent,
state-of-the-art trains. They have planned a network that
will link over 200 Midwestern cities and major hub airports.
An advanced rail system serving [your community's name]
can play a major role as an economic development tool,
maintaining our community as an attractive place to live and
do business. Fast, frequent rail service will bring us more
business travelers, build the vitality of our central business
district, and provide our citizens with more travel options.
I would like Congress to provide the same type of funding
for this rail network that Congress provides for the Interstate
Highway system. I hope that you will work with other Midwest
mayors to ask Congress to achieve the following items in this
session:
A) Stabilize Amtrak and create a moratorium on train discontinuance.
Demand for expanded rail service is growing; it would be very
shortsighted to allow any trains to cease running while work
continues on a federal policy.
B) Substantially increase federal rail funding. Three types
of funding are required:
- Short term funding to stabilize Amtrak.
- Immediate infrastructure funding for key projects.
- Long term funding. The highway, aviation and transit
development programs are successful, in large part, because
they have a steady, predictable and self-perpetuating funding
which facilitates long term planning. Passenger rail needs
a comparable funding stream to allow it to reach its transportation
potential.
C) Create a new federal agency devoted to creating rail policy,
managing funding and performing oversight functions.
If you should have any questions about the high-speed rail
in the Midwest, please contact Rick Harnish, Executive Director
of the Midwest High Speed Rail Association at 773-334-6758.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Thank you,
[your name]
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