Cascadia today: Sound Transit neglects Ballard + feds abandon Cascadia fisheries + saving Bagby hot springs
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Sound Transit light rail plans neglect Ballard
As the Puget Sound-area Sound Transit agency ponders the future of light rail expansion in the face of a $34.5 billion budget shortfall, the Urbanist reports that a board retreat session on options found that it was nearly impossible to complete a planned extension to Ballard, a neighborhood in north Seattle, despite promising this to voters in the 2016 ballot measure. Nearly all the options on the table are bad: stubs of lines that were supposed to go to West Seattle, elimination of plans from Kirkland to Issaquah, slowing expansion to Tacoma and Everett.
What these debates make clear is that Cascadia needs fiscal independence from the US. As the Trump administration makes a jaw-dropping $200 billion spending request for its ill-planned war in Iran, it's obvious that Oregon and Washington need to keep our hard-earned tax dollars here at home, where we desperately need it for transportation, health care, education and the social safety net.
Andrew Engelson
Deportation kidnappings increase in Cascadia
As KUOW reported the seizure of a pregnant woman from Venezuela near the University of Washington by federal agents, the Urbanist reports on a report from University of Washington Center for Human Rights that shows federal immigration kidnappings surged in Cascadia from October to December 2025. In related news, Investigate West looks at how asylum seekers across our region – many of them at risk of harm or death if they return to their home countries – are being detained for doing check-ins and following the rules.
No easy answers to gun violence in Seattle
Marcus Harrison Green, writing for the South Seattle Emerald, examines the recent shooting deaths of two teens in Seattle's Rainier Beach neighborhood – and the arrest of another teen accused in the shooting – as the tragic outcome of our failure to meaningfully care for the lives of Black children. The solutions won't be easy, he writes:
"What ails us cannot be arrested away. It cannot be surveilled into submission. It cannot be solved only in budget hearings. It must also be met in the ordinary, unwitnessed corners of life — in after-school programs, tutoring circles, barbershops, gym bleachers, and community centers. In long conversations with a teenager whose anger is really grief, and whose silence is really a scream not to be abandoned." --Marcus Harrison Green
Feds abandon Cascadia fisheries management
And in yet another example of the Trump administration neglecting and inflicting harm on the Cascadia region, KNKX reports that the federal government is curtailing management of west coast groundfish thanks to massive spending cuts. Many of these fish are endangered by overfishing and climate change.
Let's be honest: an independent Cascadia would do a much better job of managing our forests, rivers, and oceans than the feds, who answer to corporations and billionaires.
Andrew Engelson
The struggle to save Bagby hot springs
OPB has a great, detailed feature about efforts to save the iconic Bagby hot springs in the Mount Hood national forest in Oregon from vandalism, over-use, trash, and neglect. The springs, a beloved oasis in the forest since the 1970s, is in some ways a victim of its success – long lines form for the cedar soaking tubs, and hot springs throughout our region face similar pressures.
Thanks for reading! --Andrew
Do you appreciate Cascadia Journal's exclusive reporting on the ways the Pacific Northwest is pushing back against US fascism? If you have the means, please consider a paid subscription of just $5 per month. Each subscription helps me produce original reporting and opinionated notes on Cascadia's fight to build a more resilient and autonomous bioregion. And to those who already subscribe, thank you! --Andrew
