A lot of the states farm out work to private local contractors which is where the vast majority of the resistence is coming from. At least it seems to be. The local contractors still are comfortable with and use USC frequently so getting them to convert will be harder and require a sort of grass roots efforts from people in every state to really get moving. Even gettng the majority of the states to commit to it will put pressure on the other ones to finish.
On 7/26/06, Pat Naughtin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Dear All,
Just a couple of points on road signs.
I know that Australian, New Zealand, South Africa and, most recently,
Ireland chose the direct metrication approach to changing road signs. This
involved:
1 Setting down the road conditions such as distances and speed limits
clearly and definitely. This required agreement between the Federal
Government and all of the states.
2 Deciding on which metric units to use. The units chosen were
millimetres, metres, and kilometres for construction, kilograms, tonnes,
kilopascals and megapascals for loads and pressures and kilometres per hour
for speeds.
3 Choosing a suitable date for the changeover. This was known as M-day for
road signs (there were other M-days for other activities). In Australia, the
M-day was, in fact, a precise time at midnight on a Saturday night.
4 Planning was done so that expenses were reduced by holding back on
normal sign replacement programs for a year or two before the M-day. New
metric signs were put in place and then covered with sacking material for a
year or two before M-day. Considerable savings were made by ordering bulk
amounts of standard size signs.
5 Cars and trucks with metric only odometers and speedometers were the
only ones available for two years before the metric upgrade on M-day.
6 On the chosen Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday (and a few more
through the following week), gangs of workers went around and quickly
removed all of the sign coverings.
7 To the public it looked like the metric transition had been done in a
day. Most people were impressed with the efficiency of the operation.
8 The die-hards did just that -- they died hard. They tried to look for
evidence of carnage on the roads but fortunately there was none -- there
were no additional accidents of fatalities anywhere. The die-hards went
quietly back to sleep within a few weeks. I believe that this was also the
experience in Ireland a few months ago.
By the way, Australia is roughly the same size as the USA (about 8 square
megametres) so we had a lot of signs to replace.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
PO Box 305, Belmont, 3216
Geelong, Australia
Phone 61 3 5241 2008
Pat Naughtin is the editor of the free online monthly newsletter,
'Metrication matters'.
You can subscribe at http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter
Pat is also recognised as a Lifetime Certified Advanced Metrication
Specialist (LCAMS) with the United States Metric Association. He is also
editor of the 'Numbers and measurement' section of the Australian Government
Publishing Service 'Style manual for writers, editors and printers'. He is
a Member of the National Speakers Association of Australia and the
International Federation for Professional Speakers. See:
http://www.metricationmatters.com
On 27/07/06 7:09 AM, "Mike Millet" < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> It'll certainly be interesting to see what the next generation of engineers
> decide to do. The majority of engineering students I talk to , be they
> mechanical nuclear or civil all tell me that they for the most part are
> trained almost exclusively in SI. Perhaps once that generation gets into the
> workforce and starts doing the design they'll switch it to the units with
> which they're more familiar. All the one's I've talked to have agreed that the
> SI units make for much more logical design so we'll see.
>
> My prediction is we'll end up much like the UK for the next 10-20 years where
> everything will slowly metricate except for road distance and in normal
> conversation. Temperature fuel and most other things I'm sure will metricate,
> it's just getting rid of the last vestiges of the old measures that needs to
> be done.
>
> On 7/26/06, Howard Ressel < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Nearly all States that designed and built in metric are now back to English,
>> New York will sadly soon follow. With such a bitter taste in our mouths it
>> certainly will be a generation before we attempt to convert once again. Once
>> we were leaders, now we will be followers, only converting when everyone else
>> has.
>>
>> That said, we can still convert signs and speeds to metic at any time, we
>> just need the will to do so. We can certainly continue to design and build in
>> English but post signs in metric, its just a graphic anyway. Perhaps the
>> political opposition from Contractors might not have been so great against
>> sign conversion as it has been towards metric construction, maybe that would
>> have been an easier win, it still can be...
>>
>> Howard Ressel
>> Project Design Engineer, Region 4
>> (585) 272-3372
>>
>
>
--
"The boy is dangerous, they all sense it why can't you?"
