North Texas – It's Penguin Day at the Dallas Zoo when the zoo encourages families to visit during the coldest months of the year at discounted admission prices.
“The weather is great, it's a good day to go out with the kids and not stay at home,” Armando Arias said.
The warm, sunny weather was enough to attract thousands of families. At least 10,000 visitors headed to the Dallas Zoo each day this weekend, snarling traffic and backing up parking.
“We wasted so much time, we could have been at the zoo already,” Arias said.
It took Shannon Deutsch and her family an hour and a half to find a place.
“It was very frustrating, but then we just found back roads taking the scenic route,” Deutsch said.
The Dallas Zoo says it expects large crowds on weekends with great weather, and in order to handle all those extra visitors, it's opening up overflow parking lots, grasslands and even street parking to make more space.
“We were just able to find a parking spot. We went to two different parking spots, three different parking areas; there were no spots. We've found one spot now,” Arias said.
The Dallas Zoo, the state's oldest and largest, says it has a plan to manage the growth it has seen in recent years. The zoo is asking the city of Dallas for $30 million in funding as part of the city's $1.25 billion 2024 bond package. The project will include the construction of a parking garage that can accommodate about 600 parking spaces.
“We appreciate all the work done by the bond task force, city staff and City Council as they go through the bond allocation process,” a Dallas Zoo spokesperson said in a statement. “We know they had to make difficult decisions and we look forward to helping voters understand why this support is so important to the Zoo and our parks overall.”
Meanwhile, on busy days, the zoo suggests that visitors consider using ride-sharing or taking DART so they can spend less time in the parking lot and more time inside the zoo.
The Dallas City Council will decide which city projects to ultimately include in bonds by early March. Voters will have the final say at the ballot box in May.
