Chuck Sweeney takes on Obama’s silence in regards to Rockford’s airport. To be fair, no one asked, but I think any serious discussion of the O’Hare and Peotone have to consider Rockford’s role as well as a potential regional airport in Central Illinois. Rockford is especially well suited to deal with cargo and increased traffic as the region sprawls. Peotone has the ability to take some of the regional weight and perhaps cargo off the shoulders of O’Hare.

A central Illinois regional airport is another element of the solution as well, though perhaps an intractable one. Bloomington, Peoria, Champaign and Springfield (does Decatur have commercial service?) all closely guard having service directly to their community when a more efficient system would be an airport around Lincoln that served all five communities and would be within 40 minutes of each city (not even as long as the commute to O’Hare). This sort of airport would reduce the stress on O’Hare in serving as the primary airport for that region as well. Adding that to St. Louis high capacity right now, much of that traffic could be rerouted keeping O’Hare more viable over time as the premeire cross country stop while serving other needs.

The problem? Too many Congressman representing the different cities want to protect the individual airports in each downstate city.