To Boost Revenue, Dallas Area Rapid Transit Board Will Consider Selling Beer, Wine Ads

Right now, Dallas Area Rapid Transit policy prohibits the sale of booze ads on its trains and buses for no reason other than earlier boards thought that'd just be a good idea. Or, as it was explained during a DART board meeting last month, its "predecessors determined that alcoholic beverages of any kind were treated the same as the federal government treats hard liquor and cigarettes."

But this afternoon, the board's revenue committee will vote on a policy rewrite that would get buses and trains wet. That's but one of several money generators being discussed; others include selling ads in bus shelters (another no-no for now), wrapping light-rail trains like buses, and converting standard billboards into digital ones, a la the city of Dallas's recently OK'd overhaul.

"Keep in mind that you can run an ad in the Observer to reach a specific audience," says DART spokesman Morgan Lyons this morning. "We've had this conversation in the past about movie ads. But our buses go everywhere -- in front of schools and churches and places where, I know it's hard to believe, the Observer wouldn't be welcome. And we have to be sensitive to that. But it's something the board is considering."

Lyons isn't sure it'll pass, but if it does, the next step, he says, is to see if there's even interest in beer and wine getting on the gravy train, which I believe is also known as the Green Line. "The marketplace," Lyons says, "may tell you otherwise."