Urbanism 101: What Is Transportation Resilience?

The Urbanist explores transportation resilience—the ability of transportation systems to withstand disruptions from earthquakes, flooding, extreme weather, and infrastructure failures. The article explains five key qualities of resilient systems: resistance, redundancy, response, recovery, and adaptation. Using the 2020 West Seattle Bridge closure as a local example, it illustrates how King County and regional planners design transportation networks with multiple routes and options to keep communities connected when disruptions occur.