Downtown Bus News

Sweet little D-Link bus through downtown Dallas gets a new mission

D-Link is a free shuttle in downtown Dallas

Photo courtesy of DART

Dallas public transit fans are on standby for the Dallas Streetcar, the new trolley running from downtown to Bishop Arts. It makes its official debut on August 29, with two new stops and an increase in frequency.

With that launch, some key bus routes will change, including the chipper little shuttle known as the D-Link, aka Route 722. With the streetcar taking over, D-Link will focus its entire route on downtown. No more carting hipsters to Oak Cliff for the snazzy pink bus.

D-Link will now be — ta-da — the Downtown D-Link, and it will run a bi-directional route between the Kay Bailey Hutchison Dallas Convention Center and Uptown, eliminating the current clockwise and counter-clockwise loops. From the Convention Center, buses will travel on Lamar, Wood, Houston, Ross, Field, Main, Harwood, Marilla, Cesar Chavez, and Pearl, then loop over Flora and Olive to Cedar Springs and turn back over Pearl to basically the same route in reverse.

The new D-Link will extend to the Dallas Farmers Market and other downtown hotels and attractions. It'll be a free route that operates every 15 minutes, from 11 am to 11:30 pm Monday-Saturday.

Service into the Victory Park area will be provided by Route 749 (formerly 49), as well as the Green and Orange rail lines, and the Trinity Railway Express.

The late-evening D-Link extension to Cedars will be discontinued, but customers can still connect to Convention Center or Cedars Stations on the Red or Blue DART Rail lines.

Oak Cliff's new Route 723 Bishop Arts Service will cover the outer portion of the current D-Link route and will run every 20 minutes from 9:34 am to 11:54 pm, seven days a week. It will operate in a counter-clockwise loop over Davis, Polk, Jefferson, and Zang. Local fares apply since Route 723 will no longer be a part of D-Link.

A new route 749 Stemmons/Design District Service will take over the old route 49. The rebranded route will provide a direct connection between Southwestern Medical District/Parkland Station, the Dallas Design District, Stemmons corridor hotels, Market Center, and the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, plus other downtown Dallas attractions. Service along Wood, Market, and Commerce will be deleted from the route. The schedule will remain unchanged and regular DART fares will be charged.

transportation

E-Cigarette News

Dallas City Council approves restrictions on vaping in public

Unsplash

Man vaping

Vaping will now be banned exactly like smoking, thanks to a new ordinance from the Dallas City Council.

At their December 11 meeting, the council passed an ordinance to ban vaping in all the same areas where smoking is not allowed. It'll go into effect on December 11, 2025 — giving everyone a year to get into compliance.

Proposed by City of Dallas Environmental Commission (EVC) and the Office of Environmental Quality and Sustainability (OEQS), the ordinance amends the definition of “smoking” in the Dallas City Code to include the use of vaping devices.

The ordinance does not ban vaping — it only bans where you can vape: no vaping in all indoor and enclosed spaces; within 15 feet of building entrances; and on park property. The ordinance also bans marijuana smoking in those same places.

In addition, the amendment requires restaurants, hotels, fitness centers and other businesses to update their signage to clearly state that both smoking and electronic smoking devices are prohibited.

The ordinance already earned widespread support from health organizations such as the Dallas County Health and Human Services, the American Lung Association, and the American Heart Association. These organizations, along with the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the U.S. Surgeon General, have all raised concerns about the health risks of direct and second-hand exposure to vaping aerosols, particularly for vulnerable populations such as children and older adults.

Dallas is not the first city to impose such a ban: San Antonio enacted a similar ban in October. Theirs goes into effect on January 1, 2025.

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