For the first time in three decades, Dallas is home to a downtown shuttle. And for the first time ever, the shuttle will not be marked by three-foot high bunny ears and painted-on whiskers, a la the ill-fated "Hop-a-Bus" program.
The trademark pink will remain, however, as DART rolls out D-Link, its free downtown bus route, at 11 this morning, the product of a $1.4-million-per-year partnership between DART, the city of Dallas, and Downtown Dallas, Inc.
The route starts at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center (Cedars Station after 6 p.m.) before winding past Dealey Plaza en route to Victory Park, where it skirts the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, the American Airlines Center, and then Klyde Warren Park before another trip back into the Central Business District. From there, it skips over the Trinity River and loops through Oak Cliff, making the requisite pass by the Bishop Arts District.
If that doesn't make sense, here's a map to confuse you further:
The important things to remember are that the buses run every 15 minutes between 11 a.m. and 11:30 p.m. from Monday to Saturday, that they are completely free, and that they pass by Dealey Plaza twice on each route, which should come in handy on November 22.
Now here's DART's time-lapse video of the buses getting wrapped:
