CONTENT EXPIRES: December 31, 2028 

Successful Design-Build rail transportation projects depend on early identification of key risks and the ability to transform those risks into opportunities through innovative, agile, and collaborative strategies. The Federal Way Link Extension (FWLE), a 7.8-mile light rail extension delivered ahead of schedule and within budget, demonstrates how a project can overcome complex technical challenges, redesign major structures, manage hundreds of commercial issues, and still finish with no outstanding claims. Its success was grounded in understanding contractual risks allocations, enhanced with a culture of leadership alignment. FWLE shows that traditional risk-avoidance approaches are no longer sufficient. Today’s Design-Build environment requires adaptive processes, creative design-construction-systems thinking. Sound Transit and the design builder’s commitment to a “Project First” principle fostered contract literacy, transparent communication, empowered teams, and data-driven decision making. Together, these tools transformed conflicts of a traditional lump sum contract into collaborative solutions. This presentation will highlight FWLE’s strategic and tactical approaches to proactive risk management, innovative problem solving, and real-time lessons-learned program, offering best practices that demonstrate how owners and builders can achieve “Design-Build Done Right” and become partners of choice in complex transportation delivery.