Building Resilience into Capital Projects: Early Insights from the Puget Sound

Across the Puget Sound, and most of the US, public infrastructure is built to last 50 years, but designed for climate and demographic contexts of the past. Much of this infrastructure was constructed in the mid-20th century and is reaching the end of its functional life—which has created an opening to design and build more resilient infrastructure for the future. Through a process called capital planning, jurisdictions make critical decisions about what to build, repair, or replace. These decisions are often made without climate change in mind, putting infrastructure, services, and communities at risk—and the risks are no longer theoretical. In December 2025, severe storms and flooding in Washington resulted in the most expensive public infrastructure damage the state has seen in over four decades, costing an estimated $182.3 million. 

In June 2026, the Puget Sound Climate Preparedness Collaborative (the Collaborative) launched the Building Better engagement series with local practitioners to explore a way forward for the region to address these risks and integrate climate change into capital planning. This snapshot synthesizes the challenges and solutions practitioners shared in the first session and lays the groundwork for the second engagement.