The only bus route connecting Whidbey Island to Skagit County may not be cancelled after all.

The state transportation project bill, which passed the senate, includes $2.3 million for Island Transit’s tri-county connector service.

State Sen. Barbara Bailey, R-Oak Harbor, said the bill was expected to be passed by the House quickly, but the latest wrinkle in the longest single-year legislative session on record has put everything in limbo.

She said lawmakers had an agreement on suspending an initiative that limits class size, but then some members of the senate reneged on the agreement in the “11th hour.” Without the suspension, she said, the budget will be $2 billion in the red.

“Until this is resolved, I don’t know that anything else is going to get done,” she said.

If it does pass the House and is signed by the governor, Bailey said the funding should be immediately available for Island Transit.

The route is currently scheduled to end Aug. 3.

She said the money currently allocated in the budget doesn’t have any strings attached, in contrast to a previous bill that required Island Transit to have fare boxes.

The tri-county connector service, also called the 411 routes, connects Oak Harbor to Mount Vernon and Camano Island to Mount Vernon. The route from Oak Harbor currently travels to March Point in Skagit County, where riders can transfer to a Skagit Transit bus to Mount Vernon.

While the state money may save the routes, Oak Harbor Councilman Rick Almberg, chairman of the Island Transit Board, said it doesn’t solve the long-term issue. He and the other members of the board argue that it doesn’t make sense — and isn’t fair — for Island Transit to travel into other counties, but that neighboring agencies should meet at the borders.

Skagit Transit doesn’t travel to Deception Pass, which means the Island Transit bus has to travel deep into its territory to connect.

Almberg said that having a route to Deception Pass would require Skagit Transit to also provide paratransit service in the area.

“They say they can’t afford it, but they can certainly encourage us to provide service at our expense,” he said sardonically.

As a result, Almberg said he is planning a meeting with transit officials from Skagit and Whatcom counties, as well as Bailey and Rep. Dave Hayes (R-Camano). The hope, he said, is to create a seamless public transportation system in which each agency provides service to the borders of their service areas “instead of having these huge overlaps.”

“The goal is to have a long-term sustainable plan,” he said.

Hayes previously managed to get $1 million for the Everett connector service into the multimodal transportation bill. The money was to be split between Island Transit and Skagit Transit and required the agencies to charge fares.