Patty Murray's frustration was palpable last week as she and Rep. Rick Larsen of Snohomish County made the rounds to tout the recent transportation package passed by Congress.

"I haven't knocked heads together yet," the state's senior U.S. senator said, "but I want you to know this is frustrating to us at the federal level."

Sen. Murray was talking about the region's evident inability to decide what it wants to do in what order. "We hear about the viaduct, a tunnel, monorail, Boeing Field," she said. "There have to be priorities set and we have to be realistic about the limits of federal dollars. We are not going to reopen the transportation-funding package for another five years. At the same time, people are entitled to know which state projects are going forward — the uncertainty is why the (gas) tax repeal has legs."

Murray — and this newspaper — was taking it on the chin for reportedly linking federal contributions to transportation projects with the gas-tax repeal campaign.

In response to a question, Larsen said, he and Murray tried to explain the federal money still arrives if the tax repeal is successful, but the total pot of money goes down without matching state dollars. And without a viaduct plan, the federal allocation would not have a project for the earmarked dollars.

This is not as confusing as people want to make it. "Washington is in pretty good shape in this federal package," Larsen said. "We should take it and do constructive things with this money."

Also working the package hard was Rep. Dave Reichert of the Eastside, who had the advantage of being a Republican in a Republican-controlled House.

In a letter signed by all nine House members from Washington — three Republicans and six Democrats — the delegation supported making the Alaskan Way Viaduct a "Project of Regional and National Significance."

Larsen was reported in The Seattle Times as saying there is no direct link between repeal of the gas tax to the loss of federal money, but "no one in Washington state should fool themselves into thinking the federal government will backfill" lost state funding.

Even more pointed was the statement from transportation chairman Rep. Don Young of Alaska, who told Seattle Times Washington, D.C., reporter Alicia Mundy, "Anyone who thinks of repealing the gas tax is not thinking."

Young said in The Times of July 1: "Your problem won't go away just by wishing it away. It's going (to) cost and you're going to have to pay for it."

State Rep. Ed Murray of Seattle said something similar: "If you talk about the money for transportation and you say the glass is either half empty or half full, the truth is, the glass is full. There will be no more federal money coming."

Young and others have pretty much sunk the vision of a tunnel to replace the viaduct. The fight now seems to be whether there will be enough money to rebuild the viaduct.

In a disappointing turn, a member of the Seattle City Council has asked for another study of Highway 520 — a project that has been studied since T. Rex roamed the Earth. A new transportation study group is forming to see if a Regional Transportation Investment District can be approved or if the voters will reject the idea out of hand again. They follow in the footsteps of the last blue-ribbon commission and the ones before that.

Confusion and indecision about transportation starts at home, it's not imposed on us in Olympia or Washington, D.C.

If, as every poll and instinct predict, voters will not hesitate to pass the initiative repealing the added tax on gasoline, the next logical step would be an effort for counties to keep all the tax revenue they raise within the county and not spread it around the state, giving rise to the islands of isolation known as the state of Washington.

James F. Vesely's column appears Sunday on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is: jvesely@seattletimes.com