Lucas Manfield
Audio By Carbonatix
Don’t get a ticket. Buses, light rail and the Trinity Railway Express are all free Tuesday night beginning at 6 p.m., thanks to MillerCoors.
But you’ll need to keep your eyes on the clock after that midnight kiss. Buses and trains are operating on a normal weekday schedule. That means most trains stop running from downtown a little after 1 a.m.
They’ll switch to a Sunday schedule for New Year’s Day.
The beer maker pays Dallas $50,000 a year “to promote riding transit on NYE instead of driving to key social and holiday celebratory events,” wrote Mark Ball, a DART spokesman, in an email. More than 90,000 people have taken advantage of the annual “Coors Light Free Rides” program since it began in Dallas five years ago.
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Ball expects heavier ridership than usual this year, thanks to a free fireworks show at Dallas City Hall put on by VisitDallas.
Jan. 1 is the deadliest day of the year for alcohol-related crashes, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. And when it comes to drunk driving, Dallas is the most dangerous city in Texas. In 2018, the Texas Department of Transportation recorded 57 deaths in alcohol-related crashes in Dallas alone. Houston was the runner-up with 53 deaths.
MillerCoors operates similar programs in 27 other cities, which have provided nearly 7 million free rides in total.
You can view the festive art from DART’s press release – featuring America’s second-favorite beer – below.
courtesy DART.org
