City News Roundup

Marathon and holiday trains make this a festive roundup of Dallas news

DART Rail train soupled-up holiday-style.

DART

This roundup of news around Dallas includes info about a festive new program by DART, an appointment at a local radio station, the re-naming of a city park, and an update on the annual marathon which is this weekend.

Here's. what's happening in Dallas this week:

Marathon weekend
The annual marathon is this weekend, specifically on Sunday December 11 with races on Saturday leading up to the bigger event on Sunday. One thing hard to find on their website is the route, but Dallas Police Department tweeted a map showing the loop it'll make: downtown, Uptown, Greenville Avenue, White Rock Lake, and back to City Hall. It starts at 8:30 am, so basically: avoid that entire area all morning.

The marathon is held rain or shine, and there is definitely rain forecast for this weekend; in fact a couple of Xmasy events around DFW have been postponed, including Merry Market at CityLine in Richardson and Santa Days at the Plaza at Preston Center. But marathons are all about endurance, so this thing will go on through heavy rain, thunder, lightning, high winds, and temperature extremes.

Hi Hiawatha
The City of Dallas has renamed Cummings Recreation Center in Oak Cliff in honor of Hiawatha Williams, founder of the Dallas-based Williams Chicken restaurant chain. The park is at 2976 Cummings St., mere blocks from where the first Williams Chicken opened at Ledbetter and Sunnyvale streets 35 years ago. It'll now be called Hiawatha Williams Recreation Center.

HR at WRR
Kurt Rongey has been appointed Assistant Program Director of WRR 101.1 FM, the classical music station previously run by the city of Dallas, now under the management of KERA. Rongey previously worked at WRR for 17 years as Operations Manager for 10 years, and hosted the Going Home Show. Rongey will help lead the classical music station’s conversion to an all-classical, noncommercial format and transition the management from the city of Dallas to KERA.

Festive DART
Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) has debuted its first annual holiday train and buses. There's just a single Holiday Train, wrapped with snowmen and hundreds of twinkling holiday lights to create cheer. The holiday train will travel throughout the entire DART Service Area, making regularly scheduled stops at each station along the route each evening, as follows:

December 5-11: Orange Line
December 12-18: Red Line
December 19-25: Green Line
December 26-January 1: Blue Line

DART's Holiday buses will travel on various bus routes throughout the DART Service Area through the end of the year.

DART will also host two Holiday Station events featuring radio, live music, a visit from Santa Claus, and promotional giveaways, as follows:

Saturday, December 10, 12-2 pm, Cockrell Hill Transfer Location, 4430 West Jefferson Blvd.,
Tuesday, December 13, 12-4 pm, Akard Station, 1401 Pacific Ave.

Anyone looking to ride the DART Holiday Train and Bus can use DART's “Festive Vehicle” tracker on the DART Trip Planner at DART.org.

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E-Cigarette News

Dallas City Council approves restrictions on vaping in public

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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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