Re: Conversion from Miles to km in the USA

On Jun 24, 7:36 am, tizocgringo <tizocgri...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Dear Viatologists,

I want to pose to you a question that has been percolating through my
mind since the election last fall.

When will the President in his efforts to "mainstream" us back into
the global community issue an executive order or sponsor legislation
that will finish our conversion to the metric system?

I have lived around the world, and I personally don't care if we use
either miles or kilometers.  However, I want to know what YOUR
thoughts, feelings, opinions and beliefs are on the finishing of
metricating the United States road system.

Sincerely,

ACM
tizocgringo

There was a big push for metrication of the state highway departments
from the Federal Highway Administration in the late 1990's. Like a
fool with good intentions, IL dived headfirst into this effort instead
of strongly resisting as most other states did. There were training
sessions, seminars, policy meetings, etc. We started inventorying all
our state highways and running baseline surveys in metric, and put up
a few "demonstration" signs along the interstate system with dual
miles/km distance signs. We had a few year run where all plans and
contracts were issued in metric units only, and we fully intended to
drop the "US Customary" portion of our dual-unit Design and Bridge
Manuals, among other items.

What happened in the real world: union carpenters would ask resident
engineers to convert all the metric dimensions for them in inches ansd
feet so they could use their tape measures. Many mistakes were made
when translating between systems. Right of Way plans and title
documents needed to be issued in dual units because the state's legal
system would not recognize metric legal descriptions of properties.
Metric-sized reinforcement bars like #15M and #20M were nearly
impossible to obtain, so structures had to be overdesigned to allow US
Customary bar substitutions that would not compromise the structural
designs. Contractors bellyached and complained. We had to maintain a
dual system of pay items, standards, you name it for the US Customary
projects that were still in the pipeline as well as the new metric
projects.

Finally, the feds threw in the towel under pressure from the other
states, and IL abandoned its metrication efforts. Our highway
district is working to finish our last metric set of plans as we speak
(and only because this is a job that has dragged from 2000 til now,
and it would be too expensive to re-convert to US Customary), and I do
not see IDOT ever doing one again, at least for several decades when
nobody remembers the last "metrication" effort.

But to this day, I can tell you one foot = .3048006 meters without
blinking.

RP
.