Jonathan Godes is now the director of the I-70 Coalition, following his eight year tenure as both the Glenwood Springs mayor and a city council member.
His last day on council was April 17, and he has been in his new role for 19 days.
But it’s not his first time working with the organization. Over the past three years, Godes was city council’s liaison for the I-70 Coalition.
Godes is replacing Margaret Bowes, who was with the coalition for 17 years. She announced she was stepping down in March. He decided to take the role when he saw the potential impact of regional collaboration.
“The only way to tackle some of these issues is not community by community, but as a large network of people all rowing in the same way,” he said.
The coalition is made up of almost 40 towns, cities, counties, companies, ski resorts, businesses, nonprofits and regional organizations, including the cities of Aspen and Glenwood Springs.
Godes said that although Aspen is 40 miles from the interstate, it is reliant on the I-70 corridor, especially as the Aspen-Pitkin County Airport will close for spring airfield pavement maintenance on Monday, May 5, and will remain closed until Sunday, June 1.
“That's a pretty big deal for a majority of the month to not be able to get a large portion of your visitors into your community that's kind of reliant on that tourism,” he said.
He added that there are vulnerabilities to this closure. An accident involving a cattle truck last week closed an eastbound I-70 lane near Glenwood Springs at mile marker 116 for several hours.
“Being able to get people to and from these resort communities without having these six hour long closures, which we just saw last Thursday, is really imperative.”
Godes said every time I-70 shuts down, the state loses $1.5 million per hour in economic activity.
The Colorado Sun reports, “closures last year hit the state’s economy for somewhere around $300 million.”
These numbers come from a letter the town of Vail sent to Gov. Jared Polis last month. The letter also cited safety hazards for emergency personnel and drivers stuck in their cars, as well as, “detrimental efforts on the quality of life of Colorado residents, guests and workforce.”
As director, Godes said he will work to minimize these closures by reducing the number of single occupancy vehicles on the road and incentivizing ride shares.
Threats to federal funding
Before becoming director, Godes was the regional grant navigator for the Northwest Colorado Council Of Governments, helping communities in the region apply for federal grants. And as Godes joins the I-70 coalition, he said the Trump administration is making it harder to secure federal funding.
“The new administration immediately started canceling grants, started revoking funding from grants that had already been awarded,” he said.
In January, Pitkin County, along with the city of Aspen, town of Snowmass Village and the Aspen/Pitkin County Airport, received $2 million through a U.S. Department of Transportation Multimodal Options for Decarbonization, Efficiency, and Safety grant.
This grant, which supports planning and innovation in transportation, would have enabled Pitkin County and its partners to advance multimodal initiatives at the airport through various studies.
The project would have focused on alleviating traffic congestion, increasing walking, biking, and transit ridership, enhancing roadway safety, reducing transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions, and piloting new transportation technologies.
“The condition of our aging airport has reached a point where action is necessary,” Pitkin County Commissioner Greg Poschman said in a news release in January. “This redevelopment is an incredible opportunity to create modern infrastructure that better serves both our traveling public and local community, ensuring safety, efficiency, and sustainability for years to come.”
However, Godes said the grant was revoked by the administration, then reinstated, and now it is paused, which puts these projects at a standstill.
While the I-70 Coalition is not solely a grant-obtaining or grant-writing organization, it is an advocacy group that looks for ways to improve the I-70 corridor. So, Godes is trying to be more selective in what grants to apply for, which are typically climate-related.
“Which is kind of tough because a lot of our grants that are that strong have to do with climate,” he said.
“So it's not a great time in that world,” Godes said, as President Donald Trump targets climate organizations and cuts funding for related infrastructure.
But Godes said that he has seen this before, and there will be more federal support at some point.
He also said there is going to be less funding from the state government as it has to come up with $1.2 billion – some of which will come from multi-modal transportation.
The Colorado Sun reports this shortfall is the result of the state’s budget not growing enough to cover the rising costs of state programs, which is complicated further by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR. This puts constitutional limits on public spending, limiting government revenue to the equivalent of 2008 levels after adjusting for inflation and population growth.
So, while potholes will still get filled, other projects, like bike lanes and mass transit, will be stalled.
The next coalition meeting is in July, and it is open to the public.
