Matthew Peddie

The crew of Discovery's final mission to space (photo by Matthew Peddie)

(Orlando - WMFE) Space shuttle Discovery flew Tuesday morning from Kennedy Space Center to Virginia where it will be displayed at the National Air and Space Museum hangar near Dulles International airport.

The flight is the first of four ferry operations to move the shuttles to new display sites around the country.

Soon after Discovery finished its final mission to space in March 2011, work began to remove hardware, fuel and toxic chemicals.

“It took a lot of time and effort to flush systems and in other cases remove components of those systems to ensure they will be safe,” said Stephanie Stilson, NASA flow director for the orbiter retirement program.

Discovery and the mate-demate device (photo by Matthew Peddie)

Getting the 167,000 pound shuttle onto the jumbo is a delicate process. Discovery was winched up into a mate-demate device- a giant steel gantry- and fastened to the 747 over the weekend.

“We have a huge torque multiplier,” said Stilson. “I don’t know the exact value, but it’s a huge wrench to ensure that along the way we don’t have any problem with those fasteners coming loose.

NASA shuttle transition manager Kevin Templin said while he’s sorry to see the shuttle leave Kennedy Space Center, putting it on display will help the public understand its value to space exploration.

“We get to see these vehicles every day, and we know how complex they are,” he said.

“It takes getting up close and understanding the scale and the complexity of what we’ve done here for the past 30 years to really appreciate the effort going into this.”

Templin said the retirement operation is only half over.

“Getting an orbiter to a museum is a big undertaking, a major achievement, but in parallel, there’s a team working to transition all that other property and building and records and things,” he said.

There’s still plenty of work ahead for the team in charge of retiring the rest of the orbiter fleet.

Enterprise, which never went into space, will be flown from Dulles to New York next week. The shuttle’s expected to fly over the Statue of Liberty and other landmarks Monday morning before touching down at JFK. In June, Enterprise will be put on a barge and towed up the Hudson River for display at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.

In September the 747 transporter will fly the shuttle Endeavour from Florida to California.

Atlantis has the shortest trip of all- from the vehicle assembly building at Kennedy Space Center to the KSC visitor’s center 6 miles away.

Protesters in Fort Mellon Park (photo by Matthew Peddie)

(Sanford, Florida) Demonstrations in support of Trayvon Martin are filling parks and streets in Sanford.

The green spaces in the central Florida city usually attract residents from around the area for a bit of recreation, but now they’re functioning as a stage for civic expression.

Sanford has more than 30 parks, many of them on the aptly named Park Avenue. Planners view the city’s linked green spaces and walkable streets as an inspiration for a back-to-basics approach to urban revitalization.

In the last two decades, more than $20 million has been poured into the renewal of streets and parks, and it's something visitors notice.

Downtown Sanford (photo by Matthew Peddie)

Even Reverend Al Sharpton took a moment at a rally to praise the city.

“In the days that I’ve been down and back, Sanford is a beautiful city," he said. "It’s on the side of the water, has great potential for tourism."

Sharpton went on to lambast city officials for not pushing for the arrest of George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin’s killer, saying the reputation of Sanford was not worth risking for his sake.

Founded in the 1870s, Sanford was conceived as a transportation hub, where steam ships disembarked and rail lines carried freight and passengers to the far reaches of Florida.

Orlando leaped ahead as central Florida's commercial hub in the 20^th century, but Sanford’s economic development director Nicholas Mcray says transportation is again starting to play an important part in the city’s growth.

“We have connections to Interstate 4 and State Road 417, so we are a hub for that exchange," he says. "We have an international airport which also services 40 domestic destinations. The passenger count last year was north of a million and on target for 2 million this year. So we are coming full circle.”

Mcray says the arrival of the SunRail commuter line will also give the city a lift.

“The development opportunities around Sanford SunRail station, I guess you could say the sky’s the limit," he says. "There’s a lot of green space still left around there for transit-oriented design.”

Bruce Stephenson, the director of the Masters of Planning and Civic Urbanism program at Rollins College in Orlando, says the division of public and private space also plays a part in the Martin case.

(photo by Mark Simpson)

He says parks were originally conceived as places where people of different ethnicity, class and religious background could mingle in a natural setting. “The supposition is that being in that environment would enhance stability," he explained.

Stephenson is following the Sanford protests closely: he sees this moment as a case of good urban planning helping to shape people’s behavior. “The telling experience is that we’ve seen amazingly well behaved people in an engaging atmosphere in the public spaces.”

He contrasts the protests with the violent act that got them started. “The shooting was in a private space that was gated, guarded, and I think there’s a lesson to be drawn in what happens when we shut ourselves off from other citizens.”

Paul Harris, the chair of psychology at Rollins College, is an expert in the links between physical settings and human response. He says there are neighborhoods, not always gated, where residents don’t see their home territory ending at the house.

“They see it extending out into the yard, the street. And in that case you’re going to have people more zealously protecting those spaces.”

Harris thinks it’s a stretch to attribute the peaceful nature of the protests to the design of the parks and streets where they’re being held.

“Frankly, I think the issues that are going on are so charged that the impact of the environment is probably minute,” he says.

However, Bruce Stephenson says there are some bigger urban design lessons to be learned from Sanford.  He says some of the poorer neighborhoods reflect the downtrodden history of the city's African American residents. Yet Sanford's revamped downtown and public parks have been a resounding success.

Historic Goldsboro (photo by Matthew Peddie)

“A key concept is connectivity. That’s the test for the nation: can we connect white and black neighborhoods in an equitable manner?” Stephenson says the crowning achievement of Sanford's redevelopment is Riverwalk, a park running alongside Lake Monroe which attracts people from every background, to fish, run and relax.

“What’s important about that space is that it’s connected and linear, it runs along the water. Its whole concept is to move people and connect people. Those are the steps in creating community, and Sanford has made tremendous leaps, but there is an historical legacy to overcome.”

Stephenson says the city would do well to redouble its efforts in revitalizing its streets and parks.

Nicholas Mcray is proud of what Sanford has done to improve its cityscape. He believes the 40 percent growth in population in the last decade is a testament to the charm of the city.

“We’re an open, welcoming community. We have quality of life amenities that frankly most other communities are envious of and we think that will be shining through once all of the cameras leave.”

The parks will still be there after the crowds go home, and Sanford has plans to continue its improvement program, including a $7 million extension of the popular Riverwalk promenade.  Construction could start as early as this fall.

"A nation united can never be conquered" Sanford Veterans Memorial Park (photo by Matthew Peddie)

The chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, John Mica, said airports that switch from all-federal security screening to private run security could save tax payers millions of dollars.

His remarks came in a press conference at the Orlando area's Sanford Airport.

Mica said this week the newly enacted Federal Aviation Administration Modernization and Reform Act should streamline the process for airports that want to contract with private security screening firms instead of relying on Transportation Security Administration run screening.

The Winter Park Republican said that, in the decade since it was created, the TSA has ballooned into a "mammoth agency that attempts to intimidate small airports that are efficiently run."

He said switching the 35 top airports in the nation to private security screening would save tax payers one billion dollars over the next five years.

Mica said the TSA rejected some airports which applied to contract with private security because it said that would cost more.

But he said the agency's reasoning was not backed up by a Government Accountability Office report.

"GAO said that TSA cooked the books, that they added costs in," he said.

Sixteen of the nation's 457 airports currently run private security screening,  and there are others that want to do the same, like Orlando Sanford International Airport.

Sanford already tried to opt out of all-federal transportation screening, but was rejected by the TSA last year.

The airport’s president, Larry  Dale,  said opting out of TSA run screening is about more than saving money.

“We’re already responsible for security here," Dale said.  "If things screw up we get the blame. We want to have a part and a say in the security of this airport.”

Airports which opt out of all-federal screening will get to choose who screens their passengers, but security firms would still have to meet federal approval and operate under TSA guidelines.

Sanford could hire its own agents to run security screening, but it's more likely to contract with a private firm.

"We're not going to go out and do it ourselves like Jackson Hole (Wyoming) does, as a much smaller airport," Dale said.

Sanford has reapplied to opt out, and Dale hopes to have an answer from the TSA within months.

Blank Canvas for Advertisers?

Florida's yellow school buses could be due for a facelift- if legislators sign off on a bill allowing advertisements to be placed on their sides.

The Florida House of Representatives passed the bill last month -- it now goes to the Senate for consideration.

According to the Campaign for Commercial Free Childhood, nine other states already allow advertising on the buses, while Florida is one of six considering it.

Supporters say it would provide much needed cash for school districts struggling for funding.

But there are plenty of opponents, like retired Crawfordville teacher Donna Sanford, who made several trips to the state capitol to protest.

"If we start advertising on our school buses that's going to open the door and they're going to come right on down into the hallways and jump on the bulletin boards. I'm just against it. I don't think we need to open that can of worms," she says.

Opponents also worry about increasing the risk of driver distraction. The Florida Association for Pupil Transportation, which represents school bus operators in the state, has taken a stand against the ads for that very reason.

Retired Florida Highway patrolman Edward R Hagler agrees. In his thirty years on the job he saw plenty of motorists fly past school buses as they stopped to pick up students or drop them off.

Hagler says some drivers apparently can't see a big yellow bus with flashing lights and bright red stop signs, and adverts on the bus would make the problem worse.

“When you put signs on the side of a school bus, it diminishes the recognition factor of the school bus," he says. "And why would you do that and put children in unnecessary danger by doing that? It just doesn’t make sense.”

And he says the revenue generated by the buses doesn’t make up for the added danger.

Representative Irv Slosberg sponsored the  bill.

The Boca Raton democrat is convinced the ads won’t make the roads any more dangerous. His daughter died in a car crash in 1996.

“I’d be the last guy to think about putting ads on school buses if I didn’t check it out thoroughly," says Slosberg.

"I’ve researched it and I haven’t had any problem. You know some people are trying to sensationalize it by saying these school buses are going to be wrapped in Captain Crunch ads. Well, that’s not the way it is.”

Slosberg says the ads wouldn’t obscure safety features, and some of the ad revenue would go into driver education.

Orange County is one Florida district that's considering whether to put ads on its school buses. It has some 900 buses on the road on any school day.

The district has not rolled out any firm numbers, but if it were to charge 200 dollars a month for each bus, those ads could raise more than 2 million dollars a year.

But Orange County school district's Public Relations Director Dylan Thomas says the Board would first have to decide whether to approve ads on buses, what type of ads to allow and what to charge for them.

Thomas says the ads would be small- about two by six foot and to the rear of the bus.

He acknowledges they could be distracting.

“Certainly if you do add something else to the side of a bus, that does add an element of distraction. It's a question of how great a risk is that, how great a distraction is that," he says.

Thomas says he's confident the board will take those risks into consideration when it discusses bus ads. If the bill makes it through the legislature this week, those discussions could take place as soon as the summer.

Click here to listen to an audio report by WMFE's Matthew Peddie.

(Orlando -- WMFE) With work beginning on SunRail, train traffic along the stretch of tracks running from Poinciana to Deland is expected to triple.

Rail safety experts worry that could lead to an increase in the number of motorists or pedestrians straying into the path of oncoming trains.

According to Federal Railroad Administration figures, rail crossing accidents have risen over the past 2 years after years of steady decline. In Florida in 2010, 67 people were involved in accidents at rail crossings, up from 48 the year before.

The Florida Department of Transportation says people will have to be extra vigilant once SunRail starts running.

“These railroad tracks, that had been active in the past, are going to be even more so, and these trains are going to be coming through quicker, they’re going to be quieter, and they just could sneak up on you," says Steve Olson from the Florida DOT.

So the agency is focusing on Operation Lifesaver, a nationwide rail safety education program.

Spokesman Jim Martin says the SunRail development is a good opportunity to get the safety message out.

"We have multiple lines here in Orange County, and in the Central Florida area, so my message is much broader than just the SunRail itself," he says.

And rail traffic could increase in Central Florida even after SunRail begins: the Florida DOT is commissioning two further studies looking into the potential for other commuter rail lines, one of them extending from Orlando to Eustis, and the other linking Orlando International Airport with the city.

Park Avenue, Winter Park, Florida

Listen:

(Orlando, Fla -- WMFE) "I'm afraid I have not heard about the bill" one voter says. "It's a blank for me right now," another admits. "I have not a clue," a third offers, summing up the general level of awareness about the House transportation funding bill in the home district of its chief author, John Mica (R-Fla.)

Mica has acknowledged that his transportation bill looks unlikely to have an easy road through Congress -- in fact it's been divided into three to boost the chances -- but he believes his constituents will understand the rationale for the $260 billion, six-year spending plan. Given their low-level of awareness about the bill being hotly debated in Washington, his confidence may be justified. (Listen to tape above).

Mica says the push back from fellow lawmakers isn't because of the merits of the bill, but rather, because it doesn't have thousands of earmarks like its previous transportation funding legislation.

The bill has drawn the ire of mass transit advocates, who are unhappy with plans to scrap a requirement to fund public transport from gas taxes, and the bill, HR7, is currently stalled in the legislature.

Despite the bill's unpopularity, the Winter Park Republican told WMFE in Orlando that he thinks people in his district would support moves to put transportation money back in the hands of states to spend as they see fit.

“I don’t think that bureaucrats in ivory towers in Washington know what’s best for Florida, or for our communities," he said.

photo courtesy National Biodiesel Board / ZimmComm

Fresh from their annual conference in Orlando, biodiesel producers say they'll need help from lawmakers to open the throttle on fuel production.

The chief executive of the National Biodiesel Board, Joe Jobe, told conference goers that boosting the federally mandated minimum volume of biodiesel slated for use next year is the single biggest challenge facing their industry.

Biodiesel is produced in the US from recycled cooking oil, rendered fats and soybean oil.

Under the Renewable Fuel Standard, or RFS, the Environmental Protection Agency sets a minimum volume of renewable fuel that refiners must blend into the national fuel supply.

For 2012 the RFS for biodiesel is one billion gallons, a volume US producers surpassed last year.

Jobe said the EPA proposed to lift that to 1.28 billion gallons in 2013, but it’s yet to approve the increase. He said a delay will harm the industry.

“Lack of growth would eliminate opportunities for innovation and competition and investment, and all the promise the RFS brings that we know our industry’s capable of,” said Jobe.

“If we lose this fight it will set a precedent that will make it even more difficult to grow volumes beyond 2013.”

Jobe said the delay in approving an increase for 2013 may be partly due to uncertainty created by Renewable Identification Number, or RIN fraud.

RINs are unique codes attached to units of renewable fuel: the EPA is currently investigating two biodiesel companies over allegations of producing invalid numbers.

Jobe said a task force is being formed to work on eliminating RIN fraud and, in spite of the controversy, the Renewable Fuel Standard has been a success, helping the US reduce its reliance on foreign oil for transportation.

The RFS does have its detractors.

Charles Drevna, of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, told the conference that for refiners, the RFS was not working.

“If anyone out there in the real world would have, over time, 20 per cent of your market mandated away, I don’t think you’re going to stay in business too long,” said Drevna.

In  Orlando, one of the biggest consumers of biodiesel is the Central Florida Regional Transportation Authority, Lynx.

More than 4 million gallons of biodiesel a year are pumped into the fuel tanks of Lynx's 270 buses. They run on a B20 blend: 20 per cent biomass based diesel and 80 per cent petroleum diesel, and it's blended at the main bus depot.

The blending unit was installed in 2009 at a cost of 2.5 million dollars.

Project Specialist Ricky Sonny said the investment has paid off so far, lowering fuel costs and emissions.

“In the Central Florida area it was very difficult to get the B20 biodiesel blended product,” he said.

“The thought was the biodiesel blending station would not only be able to provide biodiesel for us, for the quantity we use, but also provide for our sister agencies.”

Sonny said Lynx was the first mass transit authority in the U.S. to start blending its own biodiesel.

He said among other agencies that could start using blended biodiesel from Lynx in the future is Orange County Public Schools, which runs a fleet of more than 1000 buses.