[Dr. Sivana]

Peoria is not just a small city, it is an unusually hard to get to small city. It not only lacks a serious airport, but doesn’t even have main highways connecting it directly to other cities.

I imagine Illinois/Chicago offered lots of goodies for them to stay in state.

[bigbob]

Peoria is well served by I-74, I-155, and an airport with international services but these C-level execs are not flying coach, either. The corporate air fleet includes 3 Challenger 604 bizjets worth around $35 million apiece and about 10 pilots on staff. So don’t tell me this is so the CEO can get to O’Hare quicker. Sure it would be more convenient for the managers and staff members who travel frequenly in/out of Peoria but those aren’t the jobs that are moving.

It is true that Peoria is some distance from anywhere. This is why it’s called “Flyover Country”. It is also a “blue city” which is why the congressonal district was gerrymandered to include Peoria as part of Durbin’s strategy to get his former babysitter Cheri Bustos elected.

[railroader]

Peoria is not just a small city, it is an unusually hard to get to small city. It not only lacks a serious airport, but doesn’t even have main highways connecting it directly to other cities.

Not true. Peoria is on I-74, which runs from I-80 at Betterdorf, Iowa via Indianapolis to I-75 at Cincinnati, Ohio. I-155 gives us a short-cut to I-55 toward St. Louis, and I-74 and I-55 is a good way to get to Chicago.

Our airport has daily flights to six major hubs - Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago-O'Hare, Dallas/Ft.Worth , Detroit and Minneapolis/St. Paul. A new terminal opened in 2011, and an international terminal opened last spring.