The upshod of it all is that a country's standard of measurement MUST apply to the whole society. It is a national matter in the most profound sense. In a single clause, the Constitution grants the Congress the power to establish both currency and measurement, which, ideally, must be uniform in all matters. We cannot have metric states and non-metric states, as was seen with the highway design disaster of the 1990s
Hawaii, however, may be a different story. It's like Australia in the sense that it may relate economically more as a Pacific state than as a U.S. state. Stay tuned. More will be revealed. Paul Trusten, Reg. Pharmacist Vice President U.S. Metric Association, Inc. Midland, Texas USA www.metric.org +1(432)528-7724 trus...@grandecom.net On Jan 23, 2013, at 7:57, "Ressel, Howard (DOT)" <howard.res...@dot.ny.gov> wrote: > Like Caltrans, NYSDOT was fully metric. We were probably the furthest along > of all the States but sadly we were not ready to go it alone and have since > reverted. There are still a few metric projects out there but slowly they are > all disappearing. There was a cost to revert but most states never fully > converted and it was easier to go back to English standards (many of which > never went only metric but were partially converted or included both units). > The cost to convert to metric involved a learning curve and training costs, > these did not reoccur in the reversion. I wish it was harder and more > costly to go back we could have fought that fight but sadly it was not and > the battle was lost. > > I believe the reason it failed was because we did not convert the entire > industry, only part of it. Contractors can work in metric and did so > successfully, what they don’t want to do is work in both units. Some local > construction and all building and site development was English. For example, > Wal-Mart didn’t build in metric but they had to submit permits for highway > access in metric even though their site plans were in English. Contractors > had to buy supplies and have things fabricated In shops that had to work in > both units. We have seen too many disasters when this happens. Paul T. will > attest to the confusion in the medical field when some mixed units are used, > i.e. dosing meds in grams or milliliters but then give body mass in pounds. > > Howard Ressel, P.E. > NYSDOT > > > From: owner-u...@colostate.edu [mailto:owner-u...@colostate.edu] On Behalf Of > derryod...@yahoo.com > Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2013 7:13 PM > To: U.S. Metric Association > Subject: [USMA:52218] RE: current status of the Hawaii metric bill, H.B. 36 > > CalTrans actually went back to using imperial units from last I heard. It's > unfortunate considering they had a plan to implement metric in new projects. > > Sent from Yahoo! Mail for iPhone > > <snip>
