Bringing streetcar service back to downtown Dallas and Oak Cliff

Bringing streetcar service to Oak Cliff meant coordinating a federally funded design-build project across four partner agencies: the City of Dallas, the North Central Texas Council of Governments, Dallas Area Rapid Transit and the Federal Transit Administration. A project of this structure needed rigorous oversight to keep design, construction and vehicle procurement compliant with federal funding requirements while satisfying the needs of every agency involved.

The 1.6-mile at-grade extension, running from near Union Station in downtown Dallas to the Colorado Boulevard and Beckley Avenue intersection in Oak Cliff, also required coordinating streetcar rolling stock procurement alongside construction, plus consistent oversight of safety, quality and systems integration across every phase of delivery.

Our team served as contracting officer's representative, acting as project owner and resident construction manager for the design-build project. We provided contract administration and project management oversight of design and construction, covering project controls, design management, configuration management, construction management, construction safety, systems safety and quality control and quality assurance.

We monitored contract performance and overall project implementation throughout delivery. We also led coordination efforts among the design-builder, vehicle manufacturer and every partner agency department involved, including operations and maintenance, procurement, finance and grants and systems integration and safety.

The Oak Cliff Streetcar project delivered a $45 million, 1.6-mile at-grade streetcar extension linking downtown Dallas to Oak Cliff, restoring streetcar service to a part of the city that had gone without it for decades. Our oversight helped four partner agencies and a design-build team deliver a complex, federally funded transit project that met every agency's compliance and safety requirements.