Three El Paso County lawmakers didn’t waste any time sounding an alarm to President Donald Trump and his administration when it comes to state transportation needs, including the almost 20-mile Interstate 25 bottleneck between Monument and Castle Rock.

One week after Trump signed an executive order to expedite “high priority infrastructure” projects and less than a day after new Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao was sworn in, El Paso County state Reps. Paul Lundeen, Terri Carver and Dan Nordberg fired off a letter to Chao alerting her that “Colorado’s surface transportation system is in crisis.”

Lundeen said Monday that he hopes the letter will help speed up the timeline to widen I-25 north of Monument from two to three lanes in each direction.

In Colorado state Capitol, transportation talks haven’t gotten far.

“Funding is the focal point of this conversation right now,” Lundeen said. “We all know the longer it takes for us to get a road built, the more expensive it gets. And so the funding challenge, this hill we’re climbing, gets taller and steeper the longer we wait.”

Improvements to I-25 are already on the Trump administration’s priority list of “Emergency & National Security Projects.”

I-25 is one of the state’s primary economic and defense arteries, and the proposed widening is essential, according to Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers, El Paso County Commissioner Mark Waller and former Commissioner Sallie Clark, among others.

Colorado Department of Transportation officials said at a Jan. 6 meeting in Castle Rock that the project could cost $500 million.

CDOT Executive Director Shailen Bhatt said in that meeting that $15 million had been moved from another initiative in order to do the planning that would allow the projected 10-year I-25 construction timeline to be cut in half.

Robert Scott, the state’s transportation commissioner representing El Paso, Teller, Park and Fremont counties, said the Colorado Republican legislators’ letter to Chao can’t hurt, but that funding of Trump’s infrastructure mandate may not happen until 2018.

“There are lots of variables in terms of how much, if any, gets to the state of Colorado,” he said.

On the same day Chao took office, Gov. John Hickenlooper’s office sent a letter to the three legislators saying that he agreed the I-25 widening is “one of Colorado’s most critical” projects. El Paso County legislators sent a letter to Hickenlooper last month asking him to make I-25 a priority, as well.

Projects that are “shovel-ready” could receive top priority when it comes to receiving federal funds, Scott said, and he urged CDOT to be diligent in finishing needed environmental and planning studies on the highway.

“Letting them know that we’re paying attention matters,” he said. “But the important thing is to be ready.”

Lundeen said the letter to Chao continues the “squeaky wheel” approach that he and Waller took on in mid-December. He said he is optimistic that the approach will “get some grease working on widening I-25.”

“I think the Trump administration has been real clear in their communications and offers of regulatory relief, so we want to be at the front of that queue,” he said. “We want to be the first one in line saying we’re ready to go.”

ColoradoPolitics.com’s Joey Bunch contributed to this report.