Road construction on site is still a mixed bag in NY. Contractors talk English often
but also are starting to use metric. They do adjust though. One project I designed
involves paving with concrete. The Contractor is paving to English widths even though
the specs call for hard metric lanes. Since they are slightly wider in English, I
guess we are getting some free concrete! This is because the paver was designed to be
modified in 1' (not 300 mm) increments.
They use a modern batch plant to produce the concrete though and all the readouts and
batching are done in SI.
Quantities are measured in SI so more and more they will talk SI and be comfortable
with it. I think though it will be a generation before we stop hearing things in
English.
I often find myself conversing in English (shame).
Howard Ressel, Metric Manager
New York State Department of Transportation, Region 4
>>> "Gregory Peterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 09/13/01 10:47am >>>
I have been absent from the List for some time but I felt that I would like to share
this observation with the list members.
Recently the road in front of my house was resurfaced. The information provided by the
city state that the microsurfacing involved placing "5 to 10 mm" of new pavement over
the old.
When work began all the structures on the street were marked out. For the two manhole
covers in front of my house markings were made on the sidewalk "m 3" and "m 6". It
turns out that the far edge of the manhole covers from the curb edge are 3 metres and
6 metres respectively. Please see the photo at [
http://www3.sk.sympatico.ca/gregtami/met-road.gif ]. My street was constructed in
approximately 1979 while metrication in Canada still had much forward momentum.
While metric road work has been the "norm" in Canada for a few decades it is good to
see such obvious examples that have not reverted by to more "comfortable" Imperial
units such as "feet" as has been the case in other industries.
greg
Saskatoon SK Canada S7J 3S2
