PEORIA, Ill. – The political victory lap continues in support of a big project long in the making for Peoria International Airport, and is slated for construction to start next year.
Senator Dick Durbin is the latest to visit PIA Thursday, praising the federal infrastructure bill and the $15 million in it for a new air traffic control tower.
“When they talk about ‘What has Congress done lately?’, and we say ‘We passed the biggest infrastructure program since Dwight David Eisenhower’s interstate program,’” said Durbin (D-IL). “It isn’t just for highways, though we need them. It’s for air traffic control towers as well.”
U.S. Reps. Darin LaHood (R-Dunlap) and Cheri Bustos (D-East Moline) visited a month ago.
Tim Ekvall, president of the Peoria chapter of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, says the current 63-year-old tower, just isn’t workable anymore.
“As we upgrade technology, we’re kind of running out of space for new equipment, new cable lines, whatever we would need on that end. We’ve got 22 of us just controllers in the building. Plus, supervisors, management staff, and technical operations that are currently outside the building at Byerly Aviation. There’s no space for them to have all of their workspace needed to do their jobs.”
Ekvall says the hope now is that a new tower could last as much as another 63 years.
Speaking of mass transit, Durbin said Thursday he backs the proposed Peoria-to-Chicago passenger rail line being studied, but says there isn’t much the feds can do about it, since it would have to be a state-supported route like a number of others.
